Cougar baseball take advantage of errors and win, 5-2

VEEDERSBURG--The North Putnam baseball team took advantage of 11 walks, a hit batter and an error Saturday to beat Fountain Central on the road, 5-2. This all came with only five Cougar hits.

The Cougars (10-14 6-4 WCC) are coming off of a loss to Rockville, but they saw some positive innings in that game. This has led coach Brian Jeter to believe that he has a sectional lineup set.

"Against Rockville we came out really flat," Jeter said, "We made a lineup change and we came out flat. We gave up eight runs. We made some changes and after the first inning we played them to a 5-5 tie. I think the final score was 13-5, but we consider that a moral victory because they're ranked in the top 10. For us it is a really good momentum getter for us. This game here was our sectional lineup. The team we played will be our starters in sectionals. We won 5-2 against a really good Fountain Central team. Moving on from here I think we got our heads wrapped around some good momentum."

Jeter played that lineup he proposed in Saturday's game. Once again, he was pleased with what he saw and he was able to see all three pitchers that he wants to play in postseason play.

Seniors Beau Green and Jordan Nauert pitched the first six innings of the game for North Putnam. Green had the most work done on him. He gave up five hits and three walks which led to both Mustang runs. Nauert only gave up one hit and two walks. Between the two they only tallied three strikeouts.

Freshman Jack Kendall came in to close the game out. He started out cold getting into a 3-0 count, but on the next pitch Dill York popped out.

Kendall walked the second batter of the inning before retiring the next two to close the game.

"Top- notch (pitching)," Jeter said, "Our three pitchers who pitched today are our sectional pitchers. That's the reason we threw them today. We wanted to hone them. I couldn't ask for a better performance out of all three of them."

The Cougar batters had trouble just like Fountain Central. The one difference was that the Mustangs could hit. They had six hits to the Cougars' five.

"We had 11 runners left on base," Jeter said, " It was atrocious. We had guys getting on. You make the teams play when you get runners on base. We got 11 on and scored five. I'll take what we got out there."

It was the mistakes that lost the game for Fountain Central. With the 11 walks and hit batter three runs were scored. Also an error by the second baseman Jared Fishero led to another run. A soft liner ground ball from senior Coy Flynn went right between his legs.

The second difference in this game was that the Cougars were sure-handed on defense. A great example was when junior Daniel Huffman ran from left field almost to shallow center to make a leaping catch.

A four-run inning also was big for the Cougars in the third inning.

"Our defense and our pitching won this game today," Jeter said, "The bats were fine. We just faced good pitchers today. The defense we had today will be our lineup in sectionals. We feel that's our best, the lineup we had at the start of the game."

Things like the defense and a big inning really helped the Cougars. They gained confidence and stayed strong. Most of the season has been a let down for the Cougars, so that confidence was good to see.

With the coaching change to Jeter, things look to be heading in the right direction.

At Fountain Central

WP: Green (NP)

LP: Corey (FC)