Published: April 23, 2008 02:48 pm            

Eagle baseball earns first conference win over Noblesville 8-5

It was a beautiful day for some Snow on the baseball field.

Sophomore Stephen Snow pitched a dominant game for Zionsville Monday night, April 21, against visiting Hoosier Crossroads Conference member Noblesville, throwing just over six innings before giving way to Alex Westrick. Westrick quietly retired the final two Miller batters for a save and an 8-5 Eagle win.

“I felt I threw well, but my defense was really working behind me,” Snow said. “We haven’t been great defensively all year, but tonight it all came together.”

Snow carried a no-hitter through four innings and only surrendered one run and two hits as Zionsville (3-5, 1-4) carried an 8-1 lead into the top of the seventh inning. Snow easily got the first out of the innings, but walked a man, hit a batter, gave up an RBI double to Ryan Wides, a two-run single to Derek Asuras, and another walk before being chased from the game.

Westrick had plenty of apprehension in his first batter against Noblesville’s Jake Wood. Wood, who had homered in the previous inning, crushed a 2-1 pitch down the left field line that would have been a 3-run homer to make it 8-7, but it curved foul before sailing over the fence. Wood later hit a left sacrifice fly to score the final run before Jake Roberts grounded out on the final play.

“This is the type of win that can really be a springboard to our season with the quality of opponent we faced,” Zionsville Coach Adam Metzler said of the Eagles’ first conference win. “We’ve tried to keep battling and do the right things and finally they came through tonight.”

Noblesville was feeling generous, committing five errors. Zionsville made the Millers pay dearly each time, especially in the first inning. Max Kuhn reached on an infield error in the first inning and later scored on another error in the same inning. Louis Valle hit a ground ball with the bases loaded, and with two outs it appeared to get Noblesville out of the inning unscathed, but the second baseman booted the ball and allowed two runs. Matt Goode would add a third run, plating Keith Rogers on a single.

Two more errors in the fourth led to two more runs that put Zionsville in full control. Leo Charles led off the inning by reaching on an error by the shortstop and scored on a three-base throwing error by the catcher on Kuhn’s ensuing sacrifice attempt. Michael Tucker then came up and homered to left center to make it 7-0 Zionsville.

Tucker nearly had a second homer in the bottom of the sixth, but the Noblesville center fielder dropped the ball on the warning track for another three-base error. Tucker then scored on Keith Rogers’ sacrifice fly to make it 8-1.

“We try to hit the ball hard on the ground all the time because we know that if you put the ball in play at the high school level you can have some success,” said Metzler. “We’ve been trying that all season and it finally got through tonight.”

Offensively the Eagles were led by Tucker who was 2-for-3 with two runs scored, two RBIs, and a homer. Matt Goode also drove in a pair of runs while Charles and Kuhn each scored twice. Daniel Wilson added a pair of doubles and a run scored.

The Eagles get back to work at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 24, when they travel to Cathedral.

april 16 vs. mccutcheon

The Zionsville baseball team lost its fifth-consecutive game, Wednesday, April 16, falling to McCutcheon 13-3 in five innings.

The Mavericks scored five runs in the first two innings off of freshman pitcher Alex Westrick, but fielding errors caused the most runs.

The Eagles could only manage two hits on the game, as freshman Max Kuhn hit a single early on. He went 1-for-3 on the game.

Junior Cory Kirkham came on to pitch in the third inning, and pitched two scoreless innings to keep his team within reach.

Down 5-1 in the fourth inning, senior outfielder Louis Valle pulled the Eagles right back in the game with a double scoring two runs. He batted 1-for-1 on the day with a base on balls.

Kuhn, senior Keith Rogers, and senior Michael Tucker each crossed the plate on the inning.

The rally was short-lived, however, as the Mavericks tacked on another eight runs in the top of the fifth inning. Nick Wittgren hit a two-RBI base hit to push the score to 8-3, and a two-RBI double by Travis Fleming extended the deficit to 11-3.

Neil Hudson pitched the two-hit gem for McCutcheon.

This comes after the Eagles recorded 13 base hits in a 10-8 loss at McCutcheon, Tuesday. Zionsville is now 0-4 on conference play with two losses against Lafayette Jeff last week. The Eagles also sustained a non-conference loss at Carmel on Monday.

        

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