Apollo couldn’t maintain its strong start on Tuesday, as the Aces offense exploded for its best plate performance of the season to grab its second win at 16-1 and start the year 1-0 in district play.
The Eagles looked to set the tone for the game early, as senior Sam Holder managed to get a leadoff double and later scored on a passed ball to take a 1-0 lead after the first. After leaving a runner on third in the top of the second though, Owensboro Catholic got its first hit in the form of a leadoff double from junior Elijah Blair and got rolling.
Blair ended up at third after a pair of passed balls, diving back into the base and narrowly staying safe on a one-hopper that freshman Barrett Evans turned into an infield single. Apollo junior Noah Cook nearly worked himself out of the jam after getting a pop-out to make it two down in the inning, but he proceeded to walk the next batter before an infield single from junior Deuce Sims and a two-run single from sophomore Brady Atwell gave the Aces a 3-1 lead heading into the third.
Cook was able to limit the damage to three runs in the second, but Owenboro Catholic still had his number in the following inning and got four more runs to end his start having surrendered six earned runs on nine hits, while walking two and striking out three in 2 ⅓ innings pitched.
Having allowed just two earned runs while striking out 29 in 14 innings coming into the game, Head Coach Brandon Dennis said that some location issues just bested the junior righty on Tuesday.
“I would say he was laboring by the time we got into the second inning and that has not been his experience so far this year,” Dennis said. “He’s been pretty dominant. He had a little bit of trouble getting his breaking ball over. When he has trouble getting his breaking ball over it makes his fastball a little more hittable and they did a great job of hitting it.”
A variety of hits and errors then filled up the bottom of the fourth, as the Aces got sophomore Carter Kimmel for nine runs—one earned—on five hits, while walking on and striking out two.
This offensive outburst paired with a two-hit five-strikeout performance in four innings from senior Grant Parson were the deciding factors in the win, defeating Apollo 16-1 in the district opener. Head Coach Jody Hamilton was proud of Parson’s resolve in the win, doing a solid job of keeping control of the game after a rough first inning.
“I gotta tip my cap to Grant a little bit,” Hamilton said. “He came in and the first inning was a little rough, but he settled in and they didn’t touch him after that.”
The offensive production obviously helped in the win as well, making it the second time they’ve scored double digits this season. Having struggled at the plate during their three-game losing streak, Hamilton said it was nice to see their efforts in practice pay off at home and see the lineup gel on Tuesday.
“I turned the offense over to Casey this year,” Hamilton said. “So we’ve had a couple of good practices and yesterday’s practice was phenomenal. It was everything we needed and you could see it start to click in their heads what we needed to do in order to be a decent team. We swung it all through the lineup tonight and I don’t think there was anybody in the starting lineup that didn’t have a hit.”
Hamilton said his team was as focused as they’ve been all year, not beating themselves like they had according to the Aces skipper in their previous losses. And of course Owensboro Catholic has faced some early struggles with losing seven starters from last year’s team, so Hamilton knows that they are a work in progress early on in the season.
“Just trying to find a rotation period,” Hamilton said. “Not just for pitchers, but for the entire team… We lost seven starters, so we’ve kind of gotta overhaul everything. When you lose 80% of your offense and 80% your pitching, that’s tough to overcome in five games.”
The Aces hope to take this game a strong point to move forward from, grabbing their first district win heading into another home game against North Posey on Wednesday at 5 p.m. On the other hand Apollo fell to 5-2 and 0-1 in district play, as Dennis was unhappy with their fight on the diamond.
“We picked a bad day to have a bad day,” Dennis said. “They were fired up when we walked into the park and I don’t know. We must have failed as coaches or something. I never would’ve assumed we would have to work so hard to get our guys fired up and ready to go. I think we jumped out early there and we thought they were going to lay down and they obviously did not. They just kept coming after us and we just laid down and took it.”
The Eagles were only able to tally two hits in the loss, shining a light on a facet of the game that they have struggled with to start the season despite sitting at 5-1 coming into the district opener.
“We have rode these strong arms all year long,” Dennis said. “We have not done a good job offensively no matter who we put in there. Getting baserunners on with no outs [has been a struggle]. We’ve had to live and die with big hits with an out or two every inning that we have an offensive inning. We’re a team that needs to generate offense and we’re not doing what we need to do to put ourselves in position to generate offense.”
Dennis said that they have to do the little things on offense in order to produce runs going forward and that while they obviously didn’t want that result against Owensboro Catholic, they have plenty of time in practice to work on things and turn things around in upcoming games. But before they get a chance to practice they’ll have another big test on Wednesday, as they travel to take on Castle at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
