By Corey Stolzenbach
For The Republic
JASPER — There are different words that can be used to describe this Columbus East postseason run — improbable, magical, unconventional — all of which can seem fitting after the Olympians ere the last team standing Saturday at the Jasper regional, despite being down to their final six outs twice.
“They’ve all got a lot of heart, a lot of desire,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “That’s all on them. They don’t give up.”
And a big reason the Olympians (15-16-1) ware still standing is because of the nine seniors on the team — both through the leadership they exemplify and the play they demonstrated on Saturday.
There was Ethan Ianni, who turned in a complete-game performance for a 4-1 win in eight innings against Class 4A No. 2 Mooresville, and Josh Luedeke, who took New Albany junior Landon Tiesing deep for a two-run blast over Ruxer Field’s right field wall with two outs in the bottom of the sixth for a brand-new ballgame in what would become a 3-2 win in the regional final.
“We’ve played together throughout our whole careers, and we just know each other and have good connections with each other,” Luedeke said. “We just keep each other up and battle through adversities like we have through this whole season. So, we’re just really tight and we’re a really close group. So, we just care about each other that much to finish games.”
Luedeke was simply trying to put the ball in play and didn’t want to be caught looking at the plate, but he saw a pitch that he liked — a fastball down the middle, and drove it out, scoring senior Harry Major before he himself touched home.
“That gave us tons of confidence,” Luedeke said. “After that, everyone’s all fired up, and when we shut them out the next inning and come back and ended up winning. So, that was a big confidence booster for everyone, everyone’s hyped after.”
“Anytime you hit a home run, it gets you going,” Gratz added. “But in that situation, that was just a big-time hit in a big-time situation.”
A pitch got away in the bottom of the seventh, with junior Caleb Martoccia taking off from the plate, while senior pinch-runner Logan Christophel scored the winning run from third, throwing his helmet into the air as he crossed home plate and the Olympians dogpiled behind home plate.
A program that didn’t win a regional championship from 1994 through 2018 claimed its second regional crown in the past four years.
“We’ve had just great players, great leadership — guys going through our program that have worked really hard,” Gratz said. “We try to give our players a lot of ownership in our program (and) they have a lot of say in what we do. And I think that starts to pay off a little bit.”
East also got some big performances from its pitching on Saturday afternoon in Ianni’s performance against the Pioneers, and junior Will Boyer holding the Bulldogs to an RBI-sacrifice fly in the top of the first and an RBI -groundout in the top of the third.
The he Olympians are set to play in semistate against Cathedral at around 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Mooresville.
The 2019 state runner-up is now one win away from Victory Field and two from the first state championship in program history. Gratz said the Olympians have had some great weeks of practices these past two weeks, and he trusts them that they’ll keep going.
“We’re in the Final Four now,” he said. “Like I said, they just keep battling and fighting and never give up.”
