Jennings County’s Ian Sawyer slides into home ahead of Columbus East catcher Alex McComb Thursday April 28, 2022 at Columbus East.
Greg Jones | For The Republic
The Columbus East baseball team had its hands full Thursday night when it was facing Jennings County’s top pitcher and Indiana University commit Jacob Vogel.
Vogel fanned 11 batters and got plenty of run support to give the Panthers a 9-2 win over the Olympians.
“He’s a really good pitcher. He’s thrown a lot of different pitches for strikes,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “We had some guys on a couple different times in scoring position. He made some good pitches. We just missed on them. We’re going to build on it. He’s a good pitcher, and facing all these good pitchers will make us better down the road. It’s tough for our guys right now. They have to understand they have to get better by facing these guys and learning from it.”
Jennings (12-6) got on the board first in the top of the third inning. Austin Martin led off the inning with a walk and later advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. Keegan Manowitz then delivered an RBI-single for a 1-0 lead. Cole Sigler then doubled to put runners on second and third. A fielder’s choice bunt scored Manowitz, and an error by the Olympians (5-8-1) scored Sigler to give the Panthers a 3-0 lead.
Jennings grew its lead in the fifth when Vogel and Ian Sawyer led off the off with singles. A couple wild pitches allowed a run to score. Sam Burkman delivered an RBI-single to make it 5-0 after four innings.
East got a little rally going in the bottom of the fifth. After Chase Zapfe and Ty Uphaus both reached first and second, Harry Major delivered an RBI-single, and Blake Borkhardt hit a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 5-2 after five innings.
The Panthers put the game out of reach in the top of the seventh when they scored four additional runs.
“I thought our guys battled well,” Gratz said. “He definitely started to put on some good swings on him later in the game. I can’t be mad at that. I thought we looked a lot better at the better at the plate, despite what the outcome was. I thought we had much better at-bats than what we’ve been having lately.”
Logan McIntosh went 3 for 4 with two RBIs for Jennings. Ian Sawyer went 2 for 4.
The first two batters in the Olympians lineup had all their hits. Major went 2 for 4, and Will Rieckers went 2 for 3 with a triple.
