By RICHIE HALL
FISHERS – Baseball fans who went to Fishers on Thursday were expecting a hard-fought game when the Class 4A No. 3 Tigers hosted 4A No. 1 Westfield in the opener of that Hoosier Crossroads Conference series.
And a hard-fought game is just what they got. It came down to the final play in the bottom of the seventh inning, when a walkoff run lifted Fishers to a 2-1 victory over the Shamrocks. The Tigers handed Westfield its first loss of the season.
“That was a great baseball game all the way around,” said Fishers coach Matthew Cherry.
The Tigers scored their winning run with two outs. Carson Dunn hit a single to get on base, then stole second base after Jack Brown took a ball for a 1-0 count. The ‘Rocks then intentionally walked Brown in order to put the force-outs in play at all the bases.
But with Caulin Brown at the plate, Dunn and Jack Brown would move up a base on a passed ball, a strike that put Caulin Brown down 1-2 in the count. Caulin Brown connected on the next pitch, a hard hit ball into the infield that would officially be ruled an error, but it was enough to get Dunn home.
“Last week, I was pretty frustrated with the guys because we didn’t do a good job with two strikes last Friday and Saturday, and so we’ve worked on it all week,” said Cherry. “That run right there, Carson Dunn had two strikes, put the ball in play, beat out an infield hit. Caulin Brown had two strikes in there, hit a hard ball to end the game.”
Fishers scored the game’s first run in the fourth inning, also with two outs. Caulin Brown was hit by a pitch, and later advanced to second base on JP Preston’s single. Caulin Brown then moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored after Quinn Seefeldt reached on error.
Westfield answered immediately in the top of the fifth inning. With one out, Collin Lindsey smacked a home run into enter field.
The game started as a pitcher’s duel between two great throwers – the Shamrocks’ Gage Stanifer and the Tigers’ Tate Warner – and in Cherry’s mind, the best thing to do was battle and outlast.
“We kept track of how many two-strike foul balls we had tonight to try to elevate his pitch count,” said Cherry. “And we were at 13.” Cherry credited his team with executing that plan.
“Obviously, if we can get a hit off him, great,” said Cherry. “But he’s a special talent and so you just got to grind him out and hope that you can outlast, and fortunately we were able to outlast him.”
Stanifer went five innings and pitched well, striking out nine and allowing only one hit. Warner went six innings and was also solid, with nine strikeouts against three hits. Joey Wilmoth threw the seventh inning for Fishers and is credited with the win. Ty Anderson relieved Stanifer and allowed only one hit in one and two-thirds innings.
The Tigers finished the game with two hits, one each from Dunn and Preston. The ‘Rocks had three hits; Keaton Mahan hit a double and Mac Clarke hit a single, in addition to Lindsey’s home run.
The two teams will finish the series at 6 p.m. tonight at Westfield. Both teams are 4-1 in the conference; the Tigers improved to 9-3 while the Shamrocks are 8-1.
FISHERS 2, WESTFIELD 1
Westfield AB R H RBI
Trey Dorton 4 0 0 0
Collin Lindsey 4 1 1 1
Keaton Mahan 4 0 1 0
Maximus Webster 2 0 0 0
Mac Clarke 1 0 1 0
Luke Starr 0 0 0 0
Evan Russ 3 0 0 0
Cole Ballard 2 0 0 0
Jack Woodard 2 0 0 0
Brayden Hibler 1 0 0 0
Tyler Gentry 2 0 0 0
Totals 25 1 3 1
HR: Lindsey. 2B: Mahan. SB: Mahan.
Westfield pitching IP R ER H
Gage Stanifer 5.0 1 0 1
Ty Anderson 1.2 1 0 1
Strikeouts: Stanifer 9, Anderson 1. Walks: Stanifer 3, Anderson 1.
Fishers AB R H RBI
Joey Brenczewski 2 0 0 0
Carson Dunn 3 1 1 0
Jack Brown 3 0 0 0
Caulin Brown 3 0 0 0
Dom Oliverio 3 0 0 0
JP Preston 2 0 1 0
Curtis Kearschner 0 1 0 0
Quinn Seefeldt 2 0 0 0
Huey Dunn 3 0 0 0
Gavin Clayton 3 0 0 0
Totals 24 2 2 0
SB: C. Dunn 2, J. Brown. HBP: Brenczewski, C. Brown, Preston.
Fishers pitching IP R ER H
Tate Warner 6 1 1 3
Joey Wilmoth (W) 1 0 0 0
Strikeouts: Warner 9, Wilmoth 4. Walks: Warner 5.
Score by Innings
Westfield 000 010 0 – 1 3 4
Fishers 000 100 1 – 2 2 0