Brimfield/Elmwood’s Sean Crowe allowed two runs on five hits and struck out 12 to lead the Indians to a 7-2 Prairieland Conference victory over West Prairie/ Southeastern Saturday in baseball action at Colchester.
Brimfield/Elmwood took an early 1-0 lead on a first inning unearned run against WP/SE starter Case Marlow.
The Indians then took advantage of some wildness by Marlow in the top of the third to add to their lead.
After retiring Evan Patterson on a fly ball to Braden Coplan in center to lead off the inning, Marlow gave up a single to Griffin Hougham before issuing back-toback walks to Dane Fagerburg and Layne Johnson to load the bases.
Kyler Schatsiek followed with an RBI single to make it 2-0 and Crowe hit a sacrifice fly to Kash Lantz in right to drive home Fagerburg for a 3-0 lead.
Marlow then walked Connor Doe and Noah Malone, the latter which forced in another run to extend the Indians’ lead to 4-0.
Holden Coplan came in to relieve Marlow and struck out Brody Kenney to retire the side.
The Cyclones finally broke through in the bottom of the fourth to get on the scoreboard.
After Crowe struck out Braden Coplan to start the inning, Matt Whitman drilled a double to right and Marlow followed with a ground ball to short that Hougham misplayed for an error allowing Whitman to score to make it 4-1.
Ivan Beck walked and both runners advanced on a passed ball before Crowe uncorked a wild pitch to bring in Marlow as WP/SE cut the lead to 4-2.
Crowe would retire Austin Nelson and Eli DeCounter on fly ball outs to center to avoid further damage.
The Indians would get one of those runs back in the top of the fifth when Crowe launched a oneout homer over the left field fence to make it a 5-2 game.
Brimfield/Elmwood scored a pair of runs in the sixth on RBI hits from Hougham and Johnson to extend the lead to 7-2.
Hudson Riebling came on in relief of Holden Coplan in the seventh and struck out the side, but Crowe struck out the side after allowing a lead-off single to Nelson in the bottom of the seventh to preserve the victory.
Schatsiek and Hougham led the Indians by each going 2-for-3 with a run batted in as Brimfield/Elmwood (15-3, 6-1) finished with just six hits, but capitalized on eight walks.
Marlow was tagged with the loss, but did have two hits and a run scored for WP/SE (5-7-1, 1-4).
“That’s a team that’s got nine seniors out there and we’re very young,” said WP/SE head coach Grant Bland. “We hung with them, but again, it was a bad inning with too many walks. Case is a good kid and he’s going to figure it out. He knows how to work and he’ll put it together and he’ll be back out there leading us on the mound.”
“Too many swings and misses for me, but at the same time, we still put the ball in play and at least put a little pressure on them,” Bland added.
Bland was happy with his two freshmen relievers as Holden Coplan gave up three runs on three hits while striking out six in 3.1 innings and Riebling struck out three in one inning of shutout work.
“It was nice to have two freshmen come in and take care of business on the mound against a good team,” said Bland. “It’s really cool to see, especially when they’re 15 year-olds. It gives you a lot of hope for the future.”
WP/SE was next scheduled to face Bushnell-Prairie City on Monday in Augusta before taking on Rushville/Industry in Rushville on Wednesday .
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