LINDEN -— Monday nights non-conference baseball game between North Montgomery and West Lafayette had a little bit of everything both good and bad for the Chargers. A 2-0 North Montgomery lead quickly turned into a 3-2 in the third. That was only the beginning. West Lafayette would add six more runs over the next two innings and take a 9-3 lead. North Montgomery despite the large deficit never gave in and scored five runs in the fifth to make the game 9-8. The Red Devils weren’t done scoring and saved their best for last by doubling their run total in the sixth and seventh which included an eight-run final frame as a 3+ hour ball game at North Montgomery ended with visiting Red Devils defeating the Chargers 18-8.
The turning point for the game came in the sixth inning where a Brookes Walters single and Dylan Braun double had the Chargers in business with runners at second and third with nobody out and trailing by just at 10-8. However North would proceed to have back-to-back hitters hit infield pop-ups and the third out would come on a ground out as the Chargers couldn’t scrape across a run.
“That’s a tough situation for us and it was really the key point in the game,” Charger skipper Matt Voorhees said. “Those are missed opportunities and we have to better there. Beyond that though our struggles in the field tonight came back and tallied some errors. Our outfield struggled tonight with letting some balls drop in front of them. I felt like some of the ones early on could’ve been caught and our guys know there’s no excuse for some of those. We just have to be ready to come back hungry tomorrow.”
Walters as Voorhees mentioned continues to be rock solid for the Chargers. He came into the evening leading the Sagamore Conference in batting average and had a 3-3 night and was on five times by drawing two walks. Nick Norman added a pair of hits and freshman Caden Cole picked up a pair of RBI’s.
While the big loss to sting for North Montgomery Voorhees did take away some positives from the evening.
“Brookes continues to hit the ball exceptionally well for us,” Voorhees sad. “Dylan got a big double for a hit tonight after being down on himself from Saturday and also had a great game behind the plate with all the pitchers we used tonight.”
The Chargers will now look to re-group as a big Sagamore Conference showdown with Frankfort looms on Tuesday and Wednesday. North Montgomery is perfect 5-0 in conference play and tied with Crawfordsville atop the standings. The Hot Dogs are just behind with a 4-1 record. The game on Tuesday will be played at Frankfort with the Hot Dogs making the trip to Linden on Wednesday evening.
“Coach Dudley always does a great job with them,” Voorhees said of Frankfort. “We know they’re always going to have good pitching and historically most of our games have been close. It’ll be a different look for us with the way our rotation is set up. It’ll be a challenge both days but we’ll see what happens.”
First pitch for the Chargers and the Hot Dogs is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Frankfort.
