Baseball coaches do their best to keep it simple.
Put a barrel on the ball and force the defense to make a play.
Tuesday night at Joseph H. Goddard Field in Coal City, Independence barreled the ball up and PikeView struggled to make plays.
Taking advantage of five Panther miscues, the Patriots built an an early lead and rode the wave to a an 11-1 victory in five innings.
“We played some really good baseball tonight. Hopefully we don’t go backwards,” Independence head coach Scott Cuthbert said. “After last Thursday’s mishap (against Shady Spring), I thought we played decent over at Liberty (Friday). Saturday we played two really tough teams (Greenbrier East and Wheeling Central) down at Hurricane. Then we played good Monday in the win over Oak Hill.”
The Panthers took the early lead on a sacrifice fly from Jared Vestal in their first at-bat.
However, the momentum for the visitors was quickly squelched when two errors in the bottom of the inning put PikeView in bind.
The miscues came on back-to-back ground balls from the first two Indy batters opening the flood gates.
“It puts pressure on our pitcher to try and strike people out early in ball games. Playing at this level of baseball, you can’t do that,” PikeView head coach Josh Wyatt lamented. “We had five errors through five innings. Sadly that is who we are being some nights and we have to figure that out.”
Blake Stratton made PikeView pay with a double down the right field line creating a 2-1 advantage and the home squad never looked back.
Cole Cunningham followed with a sharp single and took second when the return throw to infield rolled free.
Both runners then scored on a single from Degan Williams for a 4-1 lead after just one inning of play.
“People can say what they want, but in high school baseball, if you put it in play regularly, the other team is going to screw up,” Cuthbert said. “Everybody screws up. We screwed up in the first inning and they scored a run.”
After setting the Panthers down in order for two straight innings, Cunningham went big fly over the right field fence in the bottom of the third.
“He has had a great year. Overall he has hit it well and he has been really consistent,” Cuthbert said about his big left-hander. “Him and Blake both have been pretty consistent as far as hitting. Cole hits it with some power too. That is a big plus.”
Williams followed Cunningham with another solid single before PikeView handed out some more good will.
An errant throw by the catcher on a pick-off attempt allowed Williams to move up two bases. A fielder’s choice ground ball from Orion Wills gave the Patriots a 6-1 lead through three innings.
While the Patriots remained hot for the nest two innings, PikeView could not find any magic at the dish.
“We came in here complacent and looking for an excuse early in the game. I tell them all the time that losers make excuses. Sometimes they are good excuses, but tonight those weren’t,” Wyatt said. “If you look at the stats, their pitcher is in the zone throwing strikes. We only had two or three people that were aggressive and that will not win you ball games.”
Over his five innings of work, Cunningham scattered five hits, walked only one batter and did not allow an earned run.
RBI-singles from Stratton and Williams plated two more runs, extending the Patriots advantage to 8-1 through four frames.
“If you can constantly put base runners on, then you can do some things. You can’t do that if you are going up there and striking out every time,” Cuthbert said. “Degan had a good night and he has really come through lately. The bottom (of the order) is not great, but they battle through and try to get on base. We are gaining on it, I think.
Independence closed out the Panthers in the fifth inning.
Levi Barnett and Brayden Kiblinger knocked in two runs on back-to-back singles prior to Barnett walking it off via a wild pitch, scoring from third base.
One night after a solid sectional win at Wyoming East, the effort put forth Tuesday was not what the PikeView coach was hoping to see.
“(Starting pitcher Samuel Lyle) should have been out of the first inning with a 0-0 ball game. We made two errors right off the bat,” Wyatt said. “Then we started feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to look to some leadership and take control of that. We have to have a little fight some times. What is scary is we can be really good, but we can also be somebody that loses quick.”
The win Tuesday was the fourth in the last five games for the Coal City kids who host Summers County Monday.
“We have had to move some people around and it is probably my fault because I maybe should have done it earlier in the year,” Cuthbert said. “It has helped us defensively. The last two games, the outfield play has been better, so hopefully we are getting there.”
