As often is the case in early-season baseball games, pitching was ahead of the hitting in Tuesday night’s season opener between Columbus North and defending Class 4A state champion Hamilton Southeastern.
Luke Harmon and Kyler McIntosh combined on a six-hit shutout, but the 4A No. 4 Bull Dogs managed only three hits and did not cross the plate in a season opener that ended in a 0-0 tie after being called because of darkness after six innings.
Harmon allowed six hits while striking out four and walking one in five innings. McIntosh hit a batter to lead off the sixth, but picked him off and then struck out the final two batters.
“Luke Harmon in his first varsity start came out there and did what we expected him to do,” North coach Ben McDaniel said. “He gave up hits the first two batters, and I think he showed his maturity as a young guy and pitched extremely well and then Kyler came in and shut them down.”
North got a single from Dylan Redmon in the second, a single from McIntosh in the fourth and a double from McIntosh leading off the sixth. McIntosh, however, was erased on a double play on a line drive to short off the bat of Reese Harmon.
“Their pitcher (Sam Reagan) did a great job,” McDaniel said. “He kept us off-balance. I’m not sure he changed his approach the second or third time through the lineup, and that’s on us. We should have adjusted a little better in the box. If he’s not going to adjust, we need to make the adjustment. We did a bad job of that tonight.”
Reagan finished with five strikeouts and two walks, one of which was an intentional pass to Austin Bode with a runner at second and two out in the fifth.
“Our sticks really didn’t come around like we should have,” Luke Harmon said. “We put up three hits with a bunch of pop-ups, and you can’t do that to win a game. But I thought it went pretty well on the defensive side.”
The Bull Dogs did not commit an error in the field.
“They put a lot of balls in play, and we kept them at bay,” McDaniel said. “The defense was solid.”
