Coaching change trips up Cougars' baseball as they travel to Athenians

The Cougars' Nolan Ensor slides safely into third base after his triple. Even though they lost, North Putnam played well going into the game with so much adversity surrounding the team. (Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT)

CRAWFORDSVILLE -- A coaching change at any point presents challenges to a team unfortunate enough to be in that situation.

Phil Webster's departure as North Putnam's head baseball coach on Thursday presented the Cougars with the difficulty of having the event occur nearly two-thirds of the way into the season.

The challenge of dealing with the turn events also came with a trip to Crawfordsville on the docket Friday.

Though North Putnam dropped the contest 10-5 after play was stopped due to inclement weather, acting head coach Brian Jeter said the squad was more settled after going back to familiar roles.

"Tonight, we went back to our basic defense," Jeter said. "Of late, coach (Webster) had been changing the defense, moving guys around quite a bit.

"We went back to the base defense and while we been having a rough go of it lately, as long as the kids put forth the effort and believe in themselves, we're going to turn this thing around."

The visitors would get runners on second base in each of the first three innings but were held scoreless during that stretch, wasting hits by Coy Flynn and Shane Beaman.

Meanwhile, the Athenians had little sympathy for North Putnam's plight, notching three runs in the first inning off three hits off of starter Jordan Nauert and a pair of errors by the visitors.

Three more runs in the third inning had the hosts eyeing an early victory but the Cougar offense finally found some life in the fourth inning.

Beau Green walked and stole second base, scoring when Nolan Ensor blasted a triple down the right field line.

Ensor would score later in the inning on a Jack Kendall single to cut the deficit to 6-2.

Crawfordsville's response was swift. A lead off solo home run by Sam Page and double by Dalton Scaggs saw Nauert replaced by Kendall.

Kendall would finish out the inning with the Cougars giving up four runs and staring at a 10-2 deficit.

Undeterred, the visitors batted around in the top of the fifth inning, starting with a walk to Cameron McPherson.

Nauert singled and with two outs, Green singled to score McPherson. Ensor was hit to load the bases, allowing Beaman and Kendall's walks to plate runs and shorten the deficit to 10-5.

As the game progressed, players began to switch in and out with greater frequency, a decision that Jeter said was talked about and taken well.

"The seniors accepted what we were doing tonight," Jeter said. "We can't win the conference so we're going after the county tournament and sectional.

"To improve our team, we've got to get everybody a little bit of playing time. When we started making the substitutions, we talked to the seniors about it and they accepted it.

"We had some kids step up with great pinch hits and base running," Jeter added. "We're proud of the kids tonight."

Before play resumed in the bottom of the inning, a line of storms passing by elicited enough lightning to halt the contest and eventually forced the game to be finished.

Jeter said that by that point, the squad felt good about the way they had responded to the early setbacks.

"In the first three innings, we gave up five unearned runs," Jeter noted. "When they called the game, the score was 10-5.

"I told the kids that we can't count it as a win, but it sure feels like it."

The Cougars finish WCC play Monday and Tuesday with their final conference meetings with Monrovia.

Jeter said with North Putnam's conference race run, their attention would start turning towards the tournaments ahead.

"We're coming out Monday with Beau Green for a few innings and throwing Jordan Nauert for a few innings on Tuesday," Jeter said. "It's not that we don't want to beat Monrovia, but we've got to rest our arms with the county tournament next weekend and winning that is a goal we can achieve.

"We're going after sectionals so we're going to start rotating players and resting arms, legs and bats."

At Crawfordsville

WP -- Corbin

LP -- Nauert

HR -- Page (C)

3B -- Ensor (NP)

2B -- Baldwin, Scaggs (C)

Next Game: North Putnam travels to Monrovia Monday.