Columbus East was rained out of its baseball senior night on Thursday, but the Class 4A No. 4 Olympians had one more set of home games Saturday to honor their three graduating seniors.
Julian Greenwell, Nash Murphy and Jonah Wichman went out with a bang. The trio combined for nine hits and eight RBIs in wins against Lawrence Central (11-1 in five innings) and West Lafayette Harrison (16-11).
Wichman and Greenwell book-ended the opener against Lawrence Central with home runs. Wichman hit the first pitch of the bottom of the first for a homer.
“I was trying to drive it to left-center, looking for a fastball right out of the gate,” Wichman said. “Usually, it’s what guys are going to throw, and he left it a little up and in, and I turned on it real quick and it went.”
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Greenwell ended the game with a three-run blast, capping a four-run fifth that gave East the victory by the 10-run rule.
“The last inning, our bats really rallied, and hitting is contagious, so I was just looking for a pitch to drive,” Greenwell said. “It just so happened that I hit it over the fence, so I was pretty happy about it.”
Greenwell went 4 for 4 with three RBIs, Wichman went 2 for 2 with three RBIs and Clayton Taylor and Ben Major each went 2 for 3 for the Olympians. Kaden Wise threw a four-hitter on the mound.
After Harrison beat Lawrence Central 16-9 in the middle game, East jumped out to a 7-0 lead after two innings against Harrison. But then the Raiders took advantage of four Olympians errors to score eight times off East starter Jose Martinez in the third to take an 8-7 lead.
Trailing 9-8, the Olympians regained control with an eight-run fifth. Dalton Back gave East the lead for good with a three-run triple, his third triple of the day.
“The thing that I thought we did best today was just bringing the intensity and also our bats,” Greenwell said. “When you put up (27) runs in two games, that’s pretty good, and I thought our pitching did good. Besides one inning where we didn’t help Jose much, I thought all around, we had a pretty good day.”
Taylor picked up the win in relief. Wichman pitched the final two innings, retiring the side in order in the seventh.
Major went 3 for 4 with a double, and Back went 3 for 5 with a double, two triples and four RBIs to lead the Olympians’ 16-hit attack against Harrison. Taylor went 2 for 2 with a double and two RBis, Parker Harrison went 2 for 3 with a two-run homer and T.J. Barkhimer went 2 for 3.
“We hit the ball very well today up and down the lineup,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “We’re swinging the bats pretty well going into sectional, which is obviously what we want. We had a couple defensive lapses there in Game 2, but we’ll clean that up and we’ll be fine there. We have a couple of days to keep hitting better and be ready to go Wednesday.”
The Olympians (19-4) will play Shelbyville at around 8 p.m. Wednesday in the opening round of the East Central Sectional.
“With our team morale and our intensity we bring to every game, I think we have a good chance of making a good run in the postseason,” Greenwell said.
