Members of the Columbus East baseball team push a hitting cage across their new field at the East baseball and softball facility in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
In its first game on its new infield turf, the Columbus East baseball team fell on the wrong side of the scoreboard Tuesday night.
The Olympians gave up three runs in the third and fourth innings to come away with a 6-2 season-opening loss to Waubonsie Valley from Aurora, Illinois.
Before the game, there was an open ceremony held at the newly constructed softball field that is fully turf.
“It’s still a little surreal to me,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “I’ve been here for a while. It’s a little speechless. It’s a beautiful facility, and we’re lucky to have it.”
The game favored the Olympians early when leadoff batter Chase Niese slapped a single. He would later score from third off the throw to second when Blake Borkhardt stole a base to lead 1-0.
That lead was short lived. The Warriors scored three runs in the top of the third on three hits. Hiroshy Wong, Owen Roberts and Josh Hung all had an RBI to capture the lead at 3-1. It was a similar result for them in the fourth when they scored three more runs off of three hits to lead 6-1.
East got one back in the bottom of the fifth. Evan Balzer hit an RBI double, but the Olympians couldn’t produce any offense in the final two innings.
Balzer was 1 for 4 with a double, and Bige Asher was 1 for 2 with a double for East. Borkhardt took the loss on the mound allowing three runs and four strikeouts in 2 1/3 innings pitched.
It’s still a work in progress for the Olympians as they totaled five hits in the contest but had three errors in the game.
“We‘ve got a lot of guys in new positions. I thought they played really well,” Gratz said. “Defensively, we made a lot of tough plays out there. We had a couple of miscues, and gave them one… our miscues weren’t in the best situation, but that’s going to happen.”
