MOORESVILLE — Columbus East has just about always been known as a football school, and over the past few years, has established itself as a state power in wrestling.
But now, are the Olympians on the verge of becoming a baseball power?
East will make its first appearance in a state baseball championship game next week after routing Avon 10-3 in Saturday’s semistate at Mooresville. And they’ll do it with seven football players among their nine starters.
“It’s amazing,” junior catcher Dalton Back said. “There are very little players that get the chance to go to state one time, and to do it in two different sports is just unreal.”
Back, a catcher in baseball, was a Junior All-State wide receiver in football. All three Olympian senior baseball players — right fielder Julian Greenwell, first baseman Nash Murphy and shortstop Jonah Wichman — earned some kind of All-State honors in football.
All four of those players were starters in 2017 when East won the Class 5A state football championship. Junior Cole Gilley was the punter on that team, and sophomore Parker Harrison saw spot duty at linebacker as a freshman.
“The guys that have played football and then the guys that are playing baseball now are getting that experience,” Gilley. “To go to two state championships, it’s going to be an absolute blast.”
Gilley, who took over as the Olympians quarterback last fall when East reached the semistate, threw a six-hitter with 11 strikeouts on Saturday. Back went 3 for 4 with two RBIs, and Wichman went 2 for 5 with two RBIs.
Now, they’ll get to play on state baseball’s biggest stage.
“It’s a totally different feeling,” Wichman said. “We set ourselves apart from anybody else in East history. It’s just surreal. It’s a great feeling.”
Murphy agreed.
“It’s even crazier,” Murphy said. “It’s just been a lot of fun with these dudes. I love them to death. It’s just crazy to go to a state championship for baseball. It’s making history.”
Wichman, Back, Greenwell, Gilley, Harrison and Murphy are the first six batters in the East lineup and all have been batting better than .300 for most of the season. The seventh batter in the order, sophomore left fielder T.J. Barkhimer, saw plenty of action at linebacker in football last fall.
“I feel like baseball and football definitely play off each other with the hand-eye coordination and conditioning, just getting stronger every day,” Wichman said. “We have a lot of two-sport guys here and a lot of athletes on the field, and hopefully, we can go win at Victory (Field).”
East football coach Bob Gaddis, who was on the Mooresville field to congratulate the players and coaches after Saturday’s win, said the Olympians have a special group of athletes.
“They deserve it and they absolutely earned it,” Gaddis said. “They didn’t back into this thing. They earned this run. All those young kids that want to specialize, you have four of those guys that are All-State football players. They’ve played in some big football games, and now they’re playing in the biggest baseball game.”
East, ranked No. 3 in Class 4A, will play Hamilton Southeastern for the state title at around 8:30 p.m. June 17 at Victory Field in Indianapolis.
“It means a lot with this type of team that we have, how family oriented we are,” Greenwell said. “It means a lot to everybody. We all worked very hard for this in the offseason and throughout the year. We put the work in, so it’s just great to see our hard work pay off in both baseball and football.”
Ted Schultz is sports editor for The Republic. He can be reached at [email protected] or 812-379-5628.
