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Tiger Cub baseball falls to Athenians
Opening day for Greencastle baseball finally came around Monday as the Tiger Cubs hosted preseason 3A No. 4 Crawfordsville.
After threatening early in the contest, the hosts were swept away by the arm of Garrett Phelps, as the Athenians won 8-0.
Greencastle coach Troy Remsburg said with a returning squad that lacked varsity starts, the squad was in for a bit of a wake-up against Crawfordsville.
"Considering we only have four returning varsity players from last year, I think we did a pretty good job," Remsburg said. "We're a little behind on the hitting but three-fourths of these guys have seen pitching at that speed.
"I think some of them adjusted after the second and third time seeing that guy. Considering the lack of varsity experience, the kids battled hard."
The hosts had chances to push across runs in three innings but usually found Phelps a difficult prospect to overcome as the senior hurler fanned 11 while only giving up a hit in six innings of work.
Tanner Nicholson was denied scoring twice in the game, once in the first inning after the Tiger Cub shortstop reached third through a walk, stolen base and wild pitch.
Riley Cook walked to load the bases before Ichiro Mozawa grounded into a fielder's choice to end the inning.
The Tiger Cubs reloaded the bases in the third inning only for the third strikeout of the inning to deny the hosts a chance to cut into a 3-0 deficit at that point.
Trailing 8-0 by the time the bottom of the fifth rolled around, Nicholson was gunned down at home after Brant Mangrum had beat out a play at first, representing the last good opportunity Greencastle had to push a run across.
Mangrum took to the mound for Greencastle and went four innings, allowing four runs while striking out two.
Anthony Rossok was dinged for four runs in an inning of work while Nicholson entered in the sixth for two shutout innings.
While the numbers sometimes didn't make for good reading, Remsburg said that the defense made solid plays.
"I thought our infield played very well today," Remsburg said. "Tanner Nicholson made several plays up the middle. Johnny Newgent made good plays at third and Anthony Rossok made several good scoops and digs at first.
"I thought Brant pitched a good game," Remsburg added of his starter. "Anthony got a little upset with himself but this is a varsity experience and I think he'll get through that. He'll pitch a lot for us this year."
Greencastle will begin the WCC portion of the schedule next week with a home and home set against North Putnam Monday and Tuesday.
Remsburg said the squad needs to find ways to get the ball in play more often but added that the team spirit during the game would be important to carry over into next week.
"We need hits," Remsburg said. "We had very few of them tonight. Some of these guys have not seen pitching of that caliber.
"I knew we would struggle a little bit. I wanted to see how they would react and they didn't get down. They kept fighting and stayed up in the dugout. They stayed positive and that's a plus right now."
At Greencastle
Crawfordsville 021 140 0 -- 8 9 2
Greencastle 000 000 0 -- 0 2 3
WP -- Phelps (1-0)
LP -- Mangrum (0-1)
2B -- Jones, Johnson (C)
Next Game -- Greencastle (0-1, 0-0 WCC) travels to North Putnam Monday at 5 p.m.