By Noah Dalton
Mitchell, the #6 ranked team in Indiana at the 2A level according to the latest poll from the IHSBCA, looked to carry the momentum from their last game, an 11-inning win over Perry Central, into this week’s slate of games.
They kicked things off on Monday against a strong 4A squad and the reigning Hoosier Hills Conference champions Seymour, in what turned out to be a losing effort for the Bluejackets, who fell 12-1.
They carried on, taking the field on Wednesday against Salem, bouncing back to beat the Lions 13-2, picking up the win by the same 11-run margin they’d been beaten by in their last outing.
Bluejackets fall flat in 12-1 loss to Seymour
MITCHELL – Though the 11-run difference in the 12-1 final score, which saw the Owls earn the decisive victory over the Bluejackets, may not show it, the two sides were in tight contention for a good chunk of Monday night’s game.
After a scoreless first inning, Seymour picked up runs in the second and third, with runners scoring thanks to a few costly errors from Mitchell, an infield error in the second, and a wild pitch in the third.
The Bluejackets brought home a runner of their own in the bottom of the third via an RBI triple from Ben Seitzinger, bringing the score to 2-1, after a fairly even start to the game from both sides.
From that point on though, the game belonged entirely to the Owls, who posted another 10 runs before securing a mercy rule-enabled win after six innings, behind a strong performance at the plate, where they batted in nine runs in three innings.
The momentum began to shift in the fourth when Seymour’s bats came alive to knock in four runs. For a stretch of four at-bats in the inning, every connecting swing crushed the ball deep into the outfield, with each shot either dropping down for an extra-base hit or landing in the glove of a Bluejackets’ outfielder for a sacrifice fly to bring home a runner. Parker Thompson, Aaron Holt, Bret Perry and Gavin Leavy were the Owls’ hitters to knock in runs in that period.
They kept the pressure on the sixth, scoring six more runs and putting themselves beyond the 10-run threshold required for an early exit through a variety of hits, RBIs, walks, and mistakes from Mitchell.
During that same three-inning stretch, which saw Seymour blow the doors off the game and take their double-digit lead, the Bluejackets struggled on offense, being held without a hit for the remainder of play after picking up two in the first three innings, Seitzinger’s triple in the third and a double from Simon Gaines in the first.
Mikey Wright occupied the mound for all six innings for the Owls, striking out 11 Mitchell hitters, and allowing two hits and one earned run.
For the Bluejackets, four different arms split time throwing during the matchup, those being Kody Earl (3.2 innings), Connor Teague (1.2), AJ Sarver (0.1) and Dason Kerr (0.1). They combined for five strikeouts, giving up nine hits and nine earned runs. They also hit five batters with pitches and walked five, something that head coach Jerry Chaney noted was a key for the Owls’ success, to go along with their strong performance.
“Seymour is well coached. Great coach, great program, great team. They’re 9-2, we came in 9-2. They played great defense. And you know, we pitched pretty well but we had five hits batsman and five walks. You can’t do that, you can’t put 10 baserunners on but other than that, I was proud of my kids. I thought we played well. We had some balls hit really hard to them that ended up getting caught,” he said.
“We had a chance and that final score was very deceiving, and it’s okay, we’re competing. We’re in between the two big conference games this week; the big one last week, Friday night, and then this one Thursday night. Those are the big ones. We were focused, I don’t think we were afraid of them. I just think they hit the ball. I don’t know that they hit it so much better than we did, they had some hits that were kind of timely and fell in, but I thought our kids did well.”
Bluejackets slam four home runs in 13-2 win over Salem
SALEM – After a slow night at the plate against Seymour, Mitchell sure picked things up in the next matchup against Salem.
Their lucky number for the night was 13; as they finished with 13 hits, 13 runs scored and 13 RBIs, though perhaps the most pertinent number for them on the evening was four, which was the number of those hits that were homers, which accounted for seven of their runs.
They started off hot in the top of the first, scoring on an RBI single from Gibson Glassco, as well as a three-run bomb over the center field fence from Bryson Zeeks, his first of the season.
The next runs for Mitchell came in the second, courtesy of two more homers from Gaines, his second of the year, and Seitzinger, his first, to bring home four more runs.
Seitzinger hit his second homer of the night in the fifth, yet another three-run shot for the Bluejackets sealed the deal, scoring their final runs of the night, giving them a double-digit lead and bookending a mercy-rule win of their own, with their defense ending the game in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Gaines, Seitzinger, Sarver, Glassco and Ethan Turner each picked up multiple hits for Mitchell in the win, with Seitzinger’s two home runs pushing him to a team-high 5 RBIs.
Teague was on the hill for all five innings for Mitchell, giving up six hits and two earned runs, striking out three.
