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4/28/2017
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
RICHMOND—One of the statewide rating services had the Madison Central Indians ranked as the state’s number one team entering Friday night’s home game against Montgomery County.
The public address announcer rolled off that fact as he was giving the starting line-ups.
Perhaps that was subconsciously meant as an intimidating device.
The Montgomery County Indians didn’t take the hint.
Behind the six-hit pitching of junior righthander Hayden Chism, making his first start on the mound for the Tribe, Montgomery County rolled to a 3-1 victory.
In baseball you don’t think in terms of “upsets” as much as you do in other sports. But make no mistake about it, the Indians pulled off a significant upset.
Along with the records—Central was 16-1 going in, the Tribe was 6-10—there was also a 10-0 setback that Central had handed Montgomery County back earlier in the season at Bobby Joe Whitaker Field.
It was hard to draw up a scenario for a competitive game, much less a Montgomery County victory.
The Tribe took some of the pressure off Chism by scoring in the top of the first inning when Paul Wise doubled to right-center and scored on a two-out triple in the same area off the bat of E.J. Mohr.
Central came back to tie the score in the bottom of the inning when junior outfielder Trey Eden singled with one out, stole second and third and scored on a two-out single by senior first baseman Jared Grant.
After that, Madison Central had just one more runner to reach third base.
Montgomery County took the lead for good in the third inning when Ty Eads and Wise had back-to-back singles to start the inning.
When Central pitcher Taelor Witt tried to pick Wise off of first base he threw the ball away and Eads came around to score with Wise ending up on third base with nobody out.
The Indians weren’t able to push another run across in that inning but did give Chism an insurance run in the fifth.
Ty Eads led off with a single and was erased when Wise hit into a fielder’s choice.
Wise moved to third base on a single by Jay Eads and then scored on a wild pitch by reliever Adam Ritchey.
The Indians missed a chance to add to the lead in the top of the seventh inning.
Ty Eads drew a one-out walk and moved to third base on another single by Wise. Eads was thrown out at home on a close play when Devon Martin hit a grounder to short.
Then when Ritchey tried to pick Wise off at second base the ball hit the MCHS runner in the helmet and went into right field. Wise was thrown out at home trying to score from second base on the play by Bryce Travis.
Chism had tremendous control in the game until the sixth inning. He hadn’t walked a batter until there were two outs and nobody on in that inning when he issued back-to-back free passes.
But he came back to retire Travis on a fly ball to Gy Eads in left field to end the inning and then set the Central crew down in 1-2-3 fashion in the seventh, getting the final out on a strikeout of leadoff batter Logan Thomason.
Chism had just two strikeouts in the contest but he threw strikes and the Indians made plays behind him. Montgomery County played errorless baseball with sophomore third baseman Luke Fuller handling five plays, shortstop Paul Wise four and the Indians’ young outfield crew of sophomores Jay and Ty Eads and freshman Tyler Jacobs handling eight of the outs.
Along with the two strikeouts by Chism, senior catcher Devon Martin also threw out a runner trying to steal second base.
“Hayden threw strikes and we played a clean game on defense,” explained Coach Rob Ledington.
Ledington said the victory was a case of “good pitching and defense and getting just enough offense to win.”
“I love the way this team has hung in there through some adversity and continued to practice well as they are learning and improving,” Ledington continued. “We may have a game next week where we throw strikes and they just get hits and we get beat, but hopefully we’ll just continue to do what we’ve been doing these last few games and give ourselves a chance to win.”
The victory over Madison Central was Montgomery County’s fourth in a row as they have rebounded from a 3-10 start to stand 7-10. And in those four games the Tribe pitching staff has allowed just two runs over 26 innings, lowering the team’s collective earned run average from almost five to 3.96.
The Indians have a big week coming up. They started Monday with a trip to Harrison County, were scheduled to host Bourbon County on Tuesday and then host Clark County on Friday and Campbell County on Saturday.
Here’s a look at the wins over Mason County and Belfry from earlier last week:
MCHS 10, Belfry 0
The Indians handled the Pirates last Tuesday at Bobby Joe Whitaker Field as freshman lefthander Tyler Jacobs allowed only one hit in the five-inning game.
The Pirates had a chance to get on the board first when senior pitcher Jordan Scott doubled with one out. But Jacobs retired the next two batters on foul pop-ups to catcher Devon Martin.
The game was still scoreless in the top of the third when Jacobs walked leadoff batter Matt Fought who went to second on a sacrifice and took third on a ground out. Then Belfry’s Kaleb Taylor ripped the ball up the middle and Indian second baseman E.J. Mohr made a sensational diving catch on the line drive to end the inning.
Montgomery County committed just one error behind Jacobs and that came in the fourth inning to the first batter up and then Jacobs promptly picked him off of first.
The Indians got their offense rolling in the bottom of the third when Wise walked with one out and Martin singled. They both came around to score without the aid of another hit.
Then the Indian scored five more in the fourth when Martin singled in a run and two more scored on Mohr’s triple to raise the lead to 7-0.
The Indians ended the game in the bottom of the fifth when Belfry pi
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