By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
For the Carl Junction baseball team, it was “now or never” at this week’s 47th Annual Bill O’Dell Tournament in Carthage.
The Bulldogs had lost seven of eight to open the season, but are probably feeling a lot better after sweeping all four games in the tournament and downing the hosts 7-1 on Friday night in the championship game.
“We have COC play coming up and if we’re going to get things rolling and try to get things back on track and become the best version of ourselves later in the season, we needed to jumpstart it and I thought our guys took care of it this week,” said Carl Junction coach Jake Stevenson.
Stevenson said he told his players before the game that if things didn’t go well early they had to stick with it and stay competitive at the plate. And that’s basically how things played out, though the first four innings weren’t exactly going poorly for the Bulldogs.
It was a 1-1 game when Carl Junction blew things open with five runs in the top of the fifth thanks to some clutch hitting. Cole Wilson singled and stole second, then scored the go-ahead run on a single through the right side by Logan Eck. Another base hit by Arlen Wakefield put runners at second and third for Lucas Vanlanduit, who cleared the bases with a liner to left-center field.
Carthage recorded the first out when Kyler Perry bunted to move him over, and then Jordan Woodruff blasted a double over the left fielder to make it 5-1. The Bulldogs added the final run of the inning when a throw to the pitcher covering first pulled him off the bag.
The damage all started that inning with Carthage’s 7-8-9 hitters, too, and that trio of Wilson, Eck and Wakefield went a combined 5-for-10 in the game with three runs and two RBI’s.
“They’ve been really good for us this week,” Stevenson said. “Any time in the game of baseball the bottom of the order can produce and turn over the lineup for you, you’re going to have success and we were able to do that, not just in this game but other games as well.”
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Carl Junction’s seventh run came in the top of the seventh after Perry singled and later scored on a wild pitch.
Eck got the win on the mound, pitching five innings and allowing just two hits and a walk with one unearned run. Vanlanduit closed it out, allowing one hit and striking out three in two innings. Carthage’s Kanen Vogt took the loss.
“I thought he did a great job for the most part,” Carthage coach Luke Bordewick said. “He lived low in the zone with his curveball and fastball. They had that one inning where they strung a few together. Part of that’s on me, I was calling pitches there. I had some tendencies lined up and I kinda missed on a couple. That’s baseball. You’ve got to respond to it. Offensively we just didn’t do a good enough job sticking to our game plan of hitting hard ground balls and putting pressure on the defense.”
Carl Junction improved to 5-7 with the win – the team’s first Bill O’Dell championship in at least six years – and Carthage dropped to 5-5.
Jordan Woodruff was 3-for-4 for Carl Junction with a run and an RBI. Wilson was 2-for-4 with a run and an RBI and Eck was 2-for-3 with one driven in.
Carthage’s three hits, all singles, came from Nate Norbury, Logan Carmickle and Drew Musche. Clay Kinder scored the team’s only run and Musche had the RBI.
“We’ve got quite a week next week with three conference games and three games in another tournament in Lawrence,” Bordewick said. “We’re playing a lot of baseball, I think it’s 10 games in 10 days. You ask any coach what’s the best practice, it’s a game. Getting those game reps in, it’s good stuff. Kids are feeling confident, feeling ready. We’ve got our COC opener as well next week. That’s one of our goals, to compete in the COC at a good clip. I think we’re ready for it.”
