Things started out smooth for Columbus East Wednesday night when Jackson Watkins pitched a scoreless first inning against Class 4A No. 4 Center Grove.
After that, it went south for the host Olympians. The Trojans, last year’s 4A state runner-up, scored four times in the second and 12 more in the third on their way to a 17-1, five-inning baseball victory.
Center Grove (2-0) managed its 17 runs on only nine hits, but walked 13 times and took advantage of five East errors.
“It’s tough when you give them, I don’t know how many freebies we gave them,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “You can’t do that to a team like that and let things snowball. You have to find a way, when they get a couple guys on, to kind of minimize the damage. We didn’t do a very good job of that tonight. We gave them a lot of free bases.”
Watkins was relieved by Eli Tindell with one out in the third. AJ Tindell came on with still one out in the third and allowed only one run over the final 2 2/3 innings.
“AJ Tindell came on in relief there, and he’s only been pitching less than a year, and he threw really well and kept them off balance,” Gratz said. “I thought Jackson Watkins started the game looking good and then kind of got into trouble there in the third.”
The Olympians (0-2) scored their run in the bottom of the third when Chase Niese struck out, but reached first on a wild pitch with one out. With two out, Blake Borkhardt lined an RBI-triple to right center.
That was East’s lone hit off Trojan pitchers Conner Vander Luitgaren, Talon Richey and Leo McEnulty.
“We didn’t swing it great today,” Gratz said. “We have to work against some (velocity). It’s hard to simulate velo in practice since we don’t have anybody that throws really hard. We have to try to find other ways to simulate it, and that’s what we’re going to work on.”
