Luke Harmon
After falling to Silver Creek 8-0 in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, Columbus North baseball coach Mike Bodart lit into his team for about 10 minutes in the left-field grass.
Whatever Bodart had to say to the Bull Dogs, it sunk in when they took the field for Game 2. They bounced back to post a 6-3 victory against the Class 3A No. 8 Dragons in the second game.
“I think that we were in our heads in the first game, and we kind of needed a butt-ripping to get our heads in it,” senior Luke Harmon said. “It showed in the second game. We figured it out.”
North (4-5), after managing only three hits and committing four errors in the opener, had nine hits and only one error in the second contest. Right-hander Joey Fry and left-hander Blake Osbourne combined on a four-hitter and allowed only one earned run.
“Joey has had three really good outings,” Bodart said. “He’s starting to come into it as a sophomore, and Blake is just really nice and steady and kind of unflappable. So we’re looking forward to them throwing more and just looking for grit.”
Connor Hensley’s two-out, two-run single highlighted a three-run second that gave the Bull Dogs the early lead in Game 2. Silver Creek scored a run in the fourth, but North got it back in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly by Hensley.
A two-out, two-run triple from Dillon James in the fifth stretched the lead to 6-1. Osbourne replaced Fry to start the sixth and gave up two runs, but shout out the Dragons in the seventh.
Harmon and James each went 2 for 3, and Hensley had three RBIs in the second game.
“We kind of cleared our head a little bit and came back with a better effort in the second game,” Bodart said. “I think we relaxed a little bit more at the plate and just started the bat on the ball, as opposed to going out and trying to smash every single one of them. We were trying to make contact and make the defense make the play on us. Rebounding after the first game and coming back and actually putting it to them … we’re ready to get the bats worked in, and it was looking good to do that.”
In the opener, Silver Creek took advantage of two Bull Dog errors to score four times off North starter Zach McLean in the first inning. The Dragons added three runs in the fourth off McLean and one in the fifth off reliever Ryan Rayburn.
“Anytime you’re not making plays, you’re putting too many extra pitches on the pitcher and extra stress, and that’s not what we want to do,” Bodart said. “We just have to make the plays and pick our pitchers up, and then when we do make a mistake, we can’t make another mistake right after it. We have to refocus and really clear our head and have some success on the next play.”
Or in Saturday’s case, the next game.
“I think we were more focused, focused on out at-bats, focused on the approach, and then we focused all week in practice going the other way with it,” Harmon said. “We had a few doubles and singles that were in the opposite (field) gap. It’s good for confidence going into next week. We have four games, so it’s more confidence than anything because confidence is everything in baseball.”
