Walks and costly errors gave Columbus East its first loss of the year against a state-ranked Cathedral team.
The Class 4A No. 9 Irish took advantage of junior pitcher Drew Hasson and an Olympian error in the first inning, scoring two runs and leaving a couple of runners stranded on base as Cathedral brought seven batters to the plate in an 8-1 victory.
Getting down early proved to hurt East. Cathedral’s Jake Andriole allowed only one baserunner through the first three innings, which was a walk to Jonah Wichman in the third. Andriole then got the next two Olympian batters to ground out to end the threat.
“We had some hard-hit balls right at guys,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “(Andriole) made pitches when he needed to and, you just have to tip your hat off to him.”
The walk was the only blemish for Andriole in his four innings of work. He sat down the East lineup with two groundouts and a flyout.
Hasson got into a rhythm the second, third and fourth innings, only allowing one run in those frames. It was the fifth where he ran into some trouble with the Irish lineup.
Three walks, three hits and an error brought 10 Cathedral batters to the plate and pushed across four more runs to put the Irish ahead by seven runs. Hasson ended the threat by getting the last batter to pop out to the shortstop to end his day on the mound.
“Hasson has had some tough games against tough teams,” Gratz said. “He has bounced back before, and I know he’ll do it again.”
The Olympians’ lone spark of the game came in the sixth inning. Josh Major drew a walk and advanced to third with two out on a single by Julian Greenwell. A passed ball scored Major.
Greenwell’s hit was the only one of the day for East.
“We just have to clean up some of the little things,” Gratz said. “A couple things in the field, being in the right spot at the right time, and I think if we do that I think we have a chance to still be a pretty good team.”
