Throughout Shane Pierce's tenure as head coach of the Strafford Indians, there has certainly been a fair share of games where runs come at a premium for his club.
This wasn't one of them.
Highlighted by a 6-run second inning, Strafford (4-2) put up crooked numbers on the scoreboard seemingly at will on Friday in a 14-4 win – making easy work of a tradition-rich Catholic (4-1) squad that appeared to have gotten back on track after a disappointing season a year ago.
“Catholic, traditionally, is a very good baseball team,” Pierce said after the victory. “We knew coming into today that they were 4-0 and they're a district opponent. We were hoping that we could just come out, play well and kind of make a statement today, and I think we did.”
Not many people would argue that a win by ten runs on Catholic's home field would indeed be a statement – one that was made all the more impressive while a prominent breeze was blowing left to right.
Considering that the vast majority of Strafford's hitters are right-handed, Pierce saw a grand opportunity to get his players to utilize the opposite field and hit with the wind – something that can be far from rudimentary for high school players.
Fortunately for Pierce, his hitters executed his ideology to near perfection.
“I think our approach at the plate today was really good with the wind blowing so hard to right field,” Pierce said. “Most of our hits were up the middle or the other way, which is something we really, really work on and did a nice job of today.”
All told, the Indians made life rough on Catholic senior starting pitcher Austin Larson on the way to collecting 16 hits on the day – nine of which came in the second and seventh innings combined. All but four of their hits were of the one-bagger variety.
While there was an awful lot of hitting going on in the top-half of the innings, the bottom-half saw a much more reserved tone, thanks to a strong performance on the bump by Indians sophomore Drew Stoll.
In his six innings of work, Stoll allowed just five hits, three runs and one walk to nab the win.
“He's going to be a really good young pitcher,” Pierce said of Stoll. “He just has to work down in the strike zone. He did a really good job today, I'm proud of him.”
Early on, Catholic was completely unable to solve Toll as the young sophomore hurler didn't allow a hit through the first four innings.
After retiring the first two Irish hitters in the fifth, the party was spoiled by sophomore Hayes Hutter, who raked a hard single to the left side to end the no-hit bid. But instead of settling back into his groove, things got a little more dicey for Strafford as Jake Neff, Mason Dickemann and Will Duff strung together three more hits and closed the gap on the scoreboard to 8-3 before the threat was through.
When asked if being informed of his no-hitter had anything to do with his fifth-inning struggles, Stoll wasn't shy in sharing his thoughts.
“I heard one of my teammates say it and I think they jinxed me or something,” Stoll said, laughing. “It got to me.”
To top things off, Stoll helped out his own cause at the plate – going 4-for-5 in the contest with a pair of infield singles and two RBIs. Catcher Chanler Collins chipped in with four hits as well.
“We were excited to come out and play today,” Pierce added. “We hadn't played since Monday, so we were looking forward to playing. It was a good day.”
Strafford comes home to play Bolivar on Monday, while Catholic travels to take on Hollister on Saturday.
