Sam Johnson picked a good game to shine, as he pitched a two-hit bid for Daviess County to guide them to their first 9th District baseball win with a 5-0 home victory over Owensboro Catholic.
Tuesday marked the end of district play, though the Panthers (9-16, 1-5 9th District) were already locked into the No. 4 seed. Coupled with an Owensboro win over Apollo, the Aces (16-11, 3-3) tied with the Eagles for the No. 2 spot.
Johnson was in command all night, and he said he felt confident before taking the mound.
“It was nice to perform, period,” he said. “I had a couple of outings this year that were kind of iffy. Tonight I came out and I knew what I wanted to do. I had the right mindset and filled up the zone.”
His defense also put together one of the more solid games of the season, and it helped the Panthers end a five-game losing streak. Head coach Brandon Dennis said it was nice to see Johnson finally throw a complete game with control.
“He’s shown us glimpses of this off and on over the last couple of years,” Dennis said. “He’s battled some injuries. Even this year when he came back, he felt like he could be good for an inning or two tops. We played sharper than we have behind him in a long time, and everything just kind of went together.”
Daviess County first broke through with a run in the third inning. After leading off with a single and advancing on a sacrifice bunt, Cole Troutman took third base and then home on separate wild pitches.
The Panthers created extra breathing room in the fifth inning when a sacrifice fly by Jacob Crabtree allowed Ryan Beckwith to score, and they added three more runs with two outs on the board. Dennis said it felt good to have a 1-0 lead, but the team wanted more.
“A second one was what we really thought we needed,” he said. “I told them we were going to do whatever we had to do to get that second run. We felt like that was going to be really important. They stepped up and got more than that.”
Three consecutive singles by Jack Gibson, Garrett Small and Wesley Hamilton drove in a run each with two outs. Troutman, Chandler Froelich and Gibson each scored to extend the lead to 5-0.
“We ran some offense,” Dennis said. “We had guys moving around as balls were put in play and maybe catching (Owensboro Catholic) out of position a little bit. I think that really played into us being able to extend that inning.”
Braden Mundy led off the seventh inning with a double for a final threat by the Aces, but he was then tagged out at third trying to advance on a groundout — the Panthers turned a 6-3-4 double play.
Johnson then struck out Hunter Small to end the game.
“We’ve been right on the brink of playing our brand of baseball all year,” Johnson said. “I think tonight was good because we were hitting the ball well and playing defense well. It was really nice to see our team come together and play well and get a win tonight.”
Dennis is hoping his team can use the momentum of a big win to close out strong. Though they’ve been close in several games this season, the Panthers have had untimely struggles at the plate and defensive miscues that tilted the contest out of their favor.
“Something always got away from us,” he said. “Just to get over that mountain a little bit for this group, it is really big. It gives us a fighting chance in a couple of weeks.”
Catholic has now lost six of their last seven after a nine-game win streak. As they close out the final weeks of the regular season, head coach Derek Hibbs said they have to turn things back around and find a way to win.
“The past two weeks we’ve been extremely flat,” he said. “Our mentality over the past few weeks, when it was going well our guys were doing good. When we started struggling, everybody is just kind of searching. We’re going to have to find it. We’re going to have to execute.”
OCHS 000-000-0—0-2-2
DCHS 001-040-x—5-7-2
WP: Johnson. LP: Munsey. 2B: Mundy (OC).
