Columbus East players walk off the field after being defeated by Cathedral in the semistate Saturday at Mooresville High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
MOORESVILLE — After Columbus East made back-to-back late-inning comebacks to win last week’s Jasper Regional, it gave the Olympians and their fans hope that even if they fell behind in Saturday’s semistate, the game wasn’t over.
So even after Cathedral plated eight runs in the second inning to take an 8-2 lead, the Olympians had to be thinking they weren’t out of it.
As it turned out, East scored five more times. Unfortunately for the Olympians, though, the Irish scored in each of their final five trips to the plate to hand them a 13-7 defeat.
“We’ve been in situations like that before,” senior center fielder Logan Christophel said. “They just came out and hit better than us. That’s basically it.”
A prime example of the Olympians’ never-say-die attitude came in the bottom of the fifth. Cathedral led 12-4 with two out and a runner on third, needing two runs to end the game via the 10-run-rule. The Irish’s Eli Bennett smoked a shot to deep center field that looked like it was headed for at least a double. But Christophel made a running, leaping, over-the-shoulder catch to keep his team’s fighting chance alive.
Logan Christophel
The fact that Christophel was playing at all exemplified the heart and spirit of this year’s team. He broke his wrist 10 games into the season and wasn’t cleared to play again until last week prior to the regional.
“We fought harder than any team in the state, no doubt,” Christophel said. “Every single one of us fought tooth and nail down to the nitty-gritty. It’s a shame we didn’t make it all the way.”
East looked like it might continue its improbable postseason run when it scored twice in the top of the first and retired Cathedral in the bottom of the inning. But ace pitcher Ethan Ianni ran into major trouble in the second, and that’s when the Irish seized control.
“Obviously, when you give up eight runs in an inning, it can be deflating,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “But they didn’t give up. They’ve never given up all year. No matter what the score was, they always felt like they still had a chance and battled like they did.
“That’s what you want to have as a coach,” he added. “You want guys that don’t ever give up, and that’s what this group is. They never quit. They kept working all season. They came to practice every single day wanting to get better, and they did. They got better as the year went on and just came up a little short today.”
It truly was a Cinderella posteason run for the Olympians, who were a senior dominated team with eight senior starters and nine seniors overall. After going 11-15-1 in the regular season, they avenged a pair of losses with one-run victories against Bloomington North and Bloomington South in the sectional before upsetting Class 4A No. 2 Mooresville in extra innings in the regional semifinals and edging New Albany 3-2 in the regional final.
“Sometimes with a lot of seniors, if you don’t have a great year, they kind of mail it in at the end, and they didn’t,” Gratz said. “They had outstanding leadership as the year went on, and they kept battling and they never gave up. I’m extremely proud of this group.”
Ted Schultz is sports editor for The Republic. He can be reached at [email protected] or 812-379-5628.
