Runs were hard to come by in Columbus East’s baseball game against visiting Shelbyville on Tuesday night, but the Olympians were able to get the run they needed to lift them to a 1-0 victory.
The lone run came in the bottom of the sixth inning when Nick Andrie singled to right field and stole second base. Will Anderson, who was struggling at the plate all night, came through under pressure to get his only hit of the game. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as he drove in Andrie to seal the win.
“I kind of had a little grudge heading into my at-bat,” Anderson said. “I wanted to have some payback. I knew we had to put some runs up, and I had to take advantage of scoring opportunity. I wanted to help Cam (Curry) out as much as I could because he pitched one heck of a game tonight, and he deserved that win for us.”
“Nick got a very nice jump over there to steal second,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “Will ended up getting the pitch he wanted. He drove it where he needed to get us the run we needed.”
The Golden Bears’ Braxton Savage and Curry kept both teams’ bats in check throughout the entire game. Both pitchers went the distance. Savage allowed six hits — all singles — while striking out eight, while Curry allowed only three hits and struck out eight.
“It was a great night for Cam on the mound,” Gratz said. “We feel good every time he is out there. I’ll pick him against anybody because he is a fierce competitor. He got tremendous help from his teammates defensively. Overall, we got a lot better at some things that we weren’t good at earlier in this season, which is a plus.
“Give credit to their pitcher, as well,” he said. “He got ahead of our guys (in the count). All of our batters except one had two strikes on them the first five innings. It was not until the sixth inning we got aggressive, and it helped out.”
Curry finished 2 for 3 at the plate.
Shelbyville almost scored the game-tying run in the top of the seventh. With nobody out, Logan Young blasted a double to deep left field and later advanced to third on a wild pitch. Curry held Logan at third as he was able to retire three of the next four batters he faced to finish the game, with one reaching via walk.
