It was fundamental baseball Tuesday in a Crawfordsville 8-1 win over Southmont in county and Monon Conference action.
A little more hitting and a good pitching performance was the difference as the Athenians take the first of two games against the Mounties and move to 7-6 overall and 4-3 in the league. South falls to 2-8 overall and 0-7 in the Monon.
“It was good to get back on track,” C’ville coach Brett Motz said. “Henry Bannon has been Mister Consistency on the mound. Our team has a lot of confidence with him out there. He gave up an early run and a couple of early runners, but he battled back, shut the door on South from that point on, and our defense had confidence behind him. They made a couple good plays behind him. We also got great contributions from 1 through 9 in the batting lineup. We had a couple big two-out hits that scored some runs and lots of others got on base.”
Bannon runs his record to 4-1 with the win, after going six innings, allowing the one run and striking out 10. Mason McCarty came in to pitch the seventh.
He hit Southmont leadoff hitter Landon Grimes and Grimes scored the Mounties’ only run on a Dean McGaughey single, but that was the only time South got across the plate.
The Athenians answered with a run in the first, another in the second, two in the third and four in the fourth to pull away.
Bannon, the leadoff hitter for C’ville, reached base twice and scored both times.
Six other hitters scored once, and Matt Miller drove in two runs.
Konner Ellsbury, hitting in the No. 8 spot, was spot-on, as the junior was 3-for-3. He had three opposite-side hits, including a double, drove in a run and scored once.
“Konner just always finds a way to get on base,” Motz said. “Having him hit down in the order has just been really good for us these last couple years. He’s been struggling at the plate recently and just today made a huge adjustment in batting practice today. He closed his front side a little and that allowed him to use his hands better at the plate. He might have been trying a little too hard to hit the ball hard. He got around on all three hits and got the sweet spot of the bat on the ball. It was good for him and for the team to see that those little adjustments in the course of a season can be so important.”
Phisher Benge started on the mound for South and picked up the loss. The senior went five innings, walking three and striking out one before Caden Miller came in to pitch the sixth inning. Benge also got the other Mounties’ hit, also in the first inning.
“Overall, we played a solid game,” South coach Dan Chadd said. “Our pitching was good with Phisher. He threw a lot of strikes, they just hit the ball well. Our defense was okay, but we have to clean up a couple things. Overall it was an improvement over some past outings. You couldn’t have asked for a better start for us in the top of the first inning, but unfortunately, we didn’t make much happen with our bats after that. Bannon is a good pitcher and he got better each inning.”
The two county rivals were back at it on South home turf Wednesday.
