Gallery by Heather BelcherĀ
Tuesday at Joseph H. Goddard Field in Coal City, it was a reversal of fortunes for the home-standing Patriots.
One night after dropping a 6-3 decision to Shady Spring when some late inning heroics fell short, Independence was the team holding on late against Wyoming East.
Just as the Tigers did Monday, the Patriots made the key plays down the stretch to secure a 6-2 win over the Warriors.
“It was kind of deja vu tonight. We got the lead and got flat. They kind of made a run at us and we had to hold on,” Independence head coach Scott Cuthbert said. “We played good defense and made the big plays tonight. We were able to scratch a couple of runs (across) early.”
Making his first start of the season, senior Clay Basham was tested right out of the gate when three singles loaded the bases with two outs.
Jacob Howard’s lazy fly ball near the line in left was nearly corralled by a sliding Caelyb Nichols before losing control coming to the ground.
Garrett Mitchell and Shawn Mosley reached on softly hit singles that never left the infield grass.
In what became a a re-occurring nightmare for the visitors, the threat was stopped in its tracks when Basham struckout the next batter.
Basham quickly put the Warriors in a bind when he led off the bottom of the first with a single before he stole second and later swiped third.
When the throw to third base got away into left field, Basham sprinted home with the first run of the night.
J.D. Monroe followed with a solid single and advanced to second on Cole Cunningham’s infield hit. Levi Barnett then moved both runners up with a sacrifice bunt.
Monroe attempted to score on a passed ball, but had second thoughts. In the scramble back to third base, the ball got loose from East, allowing Monroe to turn and score.
A pair of Wyoming East errors allowed Independence to push across a run in each of the next two frames for a 4-0 lead.
The Warriors ended with five errors on the night and all of them were costly at the time.
Assistant head coach Kevin Hedinger, who was filling in for head coach Ron “Chief” Mayhew Tuesday, pointed to defense as the key to the game.
“That was the whole ball game. They played better defense than we did,” Hedinger said. “It is hard to play a game and not make any errors, but we made too many tonight.”
Two more errors in the fifth inning and an RBI-single from Monroe made it a 6-0 game and the Patriots looked in complete control.
Wyoming East mounted a comeback charge in the sixth inning.
Back-to-back singles from Mosley and Brady Biggs ignited the visitors. When the Gabe Riling walked to load the bases, Wyoming East was in business.
“First inning we hit two or three dribblers and load the bases. Later in the game, we spank the ball and get nothing out of it, but that is baseball,” Hedinger said. “We had opportunities and didn’t take advantage of them all night.”
Singles from Hayden Blankenship and Ryan Mills moved runners station to station and trimmed the lead to 6-2.
Zach Hunt then stepped in and hit a laser that looked to clear the bases. However, the ball did not clear Basham at second base who snagged the liner and pitched it to shortstop Braydon Kiblinger for a momentum killing double play.
A fly ball to right ended the threat.
“We made a couple of nice catches. If we keep playing like that, we can stay in ball games and you will eventually win some of them,” Cuthbert said. “We are pretty solid defensively. If we can pitch more consistently and find some more offense. I think we will be really solid.”
Sophomore Levi Barnett took over for the Patriots with the bases loaded in the sixth and weathered the storm.
“We put Levi in a tough situation and he came in and threw strikes,” Cuthbert said. “We don’t have the power, strikeout pitchers anymore. That is what we try to tell them, (make them) hit the ball and we will make plays. Slowly we are getting there.”
While the score didn’t reflect it, the drama was far from over. The Warriors refused to die and loaded the bases with two outs in the final inning.
Indy’s defense stood tall once again in the clutch.
Barnett coaxed a ground ball to Kiblinger who made a perfect toss across the diamond for the final out of the contest.
Wyoming East left 12 runners on base, while Indy stranded 10 runners. Monroe and Mosley led their teams at the plate with three hits apiece.
“We had a couple more chances where we could have tacked on a few more and didn’t come through. All-in-all we played pretty good,” Cuthbert said. “We didn’t have the real bad inning which was a plus. We were close several times.”
Independence (4-5) heads to Princeton Wednesday before traveling to Myrtle Beach next week. Wyoming East (2-3) travels to PikeView Wednesday as well.