Through four innings Tuesday night, Columbus East was putting runners on base, but was having trouble getting them home.
Parker Harrison changed that with one swing of the bat.
The sophomore center fielder clubbed a grand-slam to left field with one out in the fifth to rally the Olympians to a 5-3 win against Batesville.
Trailing 3-0, Jonah Wichman reached on an error to lead off the fifth, then Dalton Back walked and Julian Greenwell was hit by a pitch to load the bases. That led to a Bulldogs pitching change, with Caleb Raab replacing Casey Werner.
Wichman scored on a passed ball, with Back and Greenwell advancing as well. Cole Gilley walked to re-load the bases, and with one out, Harrison took the first pitch he saw over the fence in left.
“I was looking first-pitch fastball, and I just wanted to drive in some runs,” Harrison said. “I was just going up trying to hit a line drive, trying to get two runs if I could, just to get some more runs on the board. It was pretty cool being scoreless all game long and then putting up five and coming out with the win.”
The home run was the first of the season for Harrison and his first grand slam at any level.
“He has a lot of power,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “He’s a guy that’s only a sophomore, but he got some experience last year, and he’s starting to really hit the ball now. It’s definitely not a surprise to see him hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
Another sophomore, Clayton Taylor, allowed only one run in four innings to pick up the win in relief of Daniel Murphy. Gilley pitched a 1-2-3 seventh to earn the save.
The Olympians (10-1) got a triple leading off the first from Wichman, but stranded him there. Harrison tripled with one out in the fourth, but he also was stranded.
Meanwhile, Batesville scored two unearned runs off Murphy in the second and one off Taylor in the fourth.
“We came out pretty flat,” Gratz said. “We were way too anxious at the plate early in the game. We kind of settled in late there and got back to what we do. I have confidence in our hitters. We have a lot of guys that can really swing it. They just have to try to stay patient at the plate and not try to do too much.”
