Centerville won the Wayne County Baseball Tournament on May, 14, 2016.
MILTON, Ind. – After a tough loss in the Tri-Eastern Conference on Friday, the Centerville baseball team bounced back with a pair of wins on Saturday to claim the Wayne County Tournament title for the first time since 2010.
“We did everything right,” Centerville Head Coach Tracey Crull said. “We had to. These are two teams we haven’t been able to beat in two years. We played them close, and we came out here, everybody did their jobs and moved runners and they took extra bases, and they put the ball in play and they were patient at the plate.”
“That’s what it takes to win this county, those two teams we beat today are good teams. They’re really good teams. They deserve this after some close ball games.”
The Bulldogs (9-9) topped Northeastern 6-2 in the championship game after a 9-8 victory over Hagerstown in the opener. Northeastern (11-7) had defeated Lincoln 6-0 earlier in the day.
“That one (on Friday) stung,” Crull said of Centerville’s 4-2 loss at Hagerstown. “It showed. They came out here and they decided they wanted to play well and they did. They took advantage of everything and I’m just so extremely proud of them.”
Justyn North
Justyn North had three hits and two RBI in the title affair to lead the Bulldogs offense.
“We came out with a better approach,” North said of his team’s outlook on the day. “We finally put two games together. We got some energy going, we started putting in hits and moving runners and scoring runs.”
Northeastern Head Coach Steve Bray noticed the difference as well.
“They handled themselves really well and they played with a lot of poise,” Bray said. “We couldn’t get our pitches down and pound the strike zone.”
“We were getting too deep in pitching counts and that kind of hurt us,” Bray added. “Offensively, we were too anxious at the plate. We were chasing the pitcher’s pitch.”
Pitching and Defense
Jack Willis
Centerville’s Jack Willis limited the Knights to four hits by Mason Fisher, Conner Bray, Zach Lester and Bailey Stewart.
“He was right there on the strike zone all night long,” Crull said. “He let the defense make some plays.”
Twin killings in the second and fourth innings started by the Centerville keystone duo of shortstop Nolan Witte and second baseman Dalton Stevens got Willis out of the jams.
“I had confidence with my defense behind me,” Willis said. “They put the ball in play and my defense helped me out.”
After picking up an unearned run in the first, Centerville added two more in the second on a RBI double by Devin Christian and a run-scoring single by Witte.
The score remained 3-0 until the seventh when Centerville added three more runs on a two-run double by North and a RBI single by Chris Pritchett.
The Knights got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the seventh. Tyler Dale knocked in the first run on a ground out, while Logan Lawhorn scored on a wild pitch.
Mason Fisher got the loss on the mound for the Knights.