South Putnam baseball takes loss at Danville 12-2 in six innings

Grady McHugh and Tyler Long race to second base to get out a Danville runner. South Putnam next will host North Putnam on Monday. (Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT)

Having started the week 3-0 with wins over Monrovia and Eminence, South Putnam looked to build on a strong week of baseball when they traveled to Danville Friday.

A slow offensive start derailed any plans of an unbeaten week, however, as the hosts scored in their first at-bat of the game and quickly overpowered the Eagles 12-2 in six innings.

South Putnam head coach Zach Love said that the squad had a fine week but misfired after three solid offensive outings.

"Overall, we had a great week," Love said. "We didn't end on the note we wanted to. We came up short on the offensive end tonight.

"We gave ourselves chances. We got guys on base and had the bases loaded at one point but we didn't get the timely hits to stay competitive and keep this one within reach."

Danville struck quickly to take a 1-0 lead after one inning and a 3-0 lead after the second before South Putnam scored their opening run.

Joe Waters was marginally beaten to the first base bag on a bunt, which became costly when Tyler Long blasted a triple at the next at-bat. Long was brought around when Brandon Gierke's infield pop-up was dropped to cut the deficit to 3-1.

The Warriors responded by hammering the visitors for five runs in the fifth inning but only needed three hits to do so, taking advantage of four walks and two errors in the inning to send 11 batters to the plate.

South Putnam missed a chance to add to the scoreboard in the top of the fifth after Waters walked, Long doubled and Gierke was walked to load the bases, only to see a Jake Carmichael pop-fly end the inning.

Danville added two more runs in the bottom half of the same inning on a walk, error and double and had a chance to end the game then, only for Grady McHugh to snare a liner and turn two by catching the hosts' Reece Jensen off third base.

McHugh doubled in Josh Stewart to score the Eagles' second run of the game in the top of the sixth. Stewart, pitching the final inning and a third, nearly pulled the Eagles into the seventh inning but gave up a double to Jared Hill that plated two and enforced the ten-run rule.

Despite the loss, Love was upbeat about the squad's success over the last five days.

"We've struggled early but had a productive week," Love said. "I'm proud of the work we put in this week and I think that gives us something to build off of in the future.

"We've got a couple more conference games, Turkey Run and Riverton Parke coming up and hopefully we can have another successful week to back this week up."

The conference slate serves South Putnam county competition again as the Eagles host North Putnam next Monday.

Love said that the squad was already looking forward and aiming for a chance to even out their WCC record.

"We're looking forward to North Putnam like we would any other conference game," Love said. "We had success against Monrovia in the last two conference games and hopefully we can build off of that and get more momentum going in our direction."

At Danville

WP -- Allen

LP -- McHugh

3B -- Ty. Long (SP); Jensen (D)

2B -- Ty. Long, McHugh (SP); Titsworth, Hill (D)