Connor Hensley
The way Connor Hensley has been pitching, the three runs Columbus North scored in the first inning Wednesday night figured to be enough to carry him and the Bull Dogs to another win.
That proved to be the case. Bloomington North did manage to scrape across a couple of runs, but Class 4A No. 7 Columbus North held on for a 4-2 victory in its Conference Indiana baseball opener.
“It’s always great to get a lead,” Hensley said. “As a pitcher, the first thing you want is to get a lead, and then that gives you comfort to have more room for error. So those runs (in the first), and then the insurance run (in the sixth) was big.”
Hensley finished with a four-hitter and allowed only one earned run. He struck out eight and walked two.
“I felt like I had pretty good stuff,” Hensley said. “I battled through some adversity and overall pitched great.”
“Connor did what he’s done all year long and what he’s done basically his whole career,” Columbus North coach Mike Bodart added. “He comes out, and he throws strikes. His strike percentage was way up, and we’re real pleased with what happened there.”
The Bull Dogs (9-1, 1-0) jumped on Cougars pitcher Drew Ogden for three runs in the bottom of the first. Ogden walked the first two batters, Dillon James and Blake Osbourne, then Brock Kintner lined an RBI-double to right center to score James. Osbourne came in to score, and Kintner went to third when the throw to the plate to try to get James went to the backstop. Kintner then scored on a groundout by Hensley.
Bloomington North took advantage of an error to score an unearned run in the third. Columbus North got the run back in the sixth when Hensley reached second on an error, went to third on a fly ball by Zach McLean and scored on a sacrifice fly by Joey Fry.
The Cougars scored in the seventh, but with a runner on first and one out, Hensley came up with back-to-back strikeouts to end it.
“They’re a good ballclub, so we were perfectly fine with coming in and holding them to two runs and four hits,” Bodart said. “This is our third time trying to play them, so fortunately, we got it in today and got a win to get started off 1-0 in the conference.”
Wednesday’s game was the first in a stretch of eight games in nine days for the Bull Dogs, who were coming off upset wins against 4A then-No. 3 Floyd Central on Friday and at 4A then-No. 4 Noblesville on Saturday.
“We’re playing great,” Hensley said. “Each day, we’re just trying to work on what we normally do and just stay consistent with what we do.”
