Warriors roll Eagles on the baseball diamond

The South Putnam Eagles were playing their fourth game in four nights and did not have the energy to hang with the Danville Warriors at home on Friday night in high school baseball action. The Eagles only garnered two hits on the night as they committed five errors and lost 13-0 in five innings. The loss dropped the Eagles to 3-13, while Danville improved to 12-10.

“We were tired and you could tell it. We just did not have it tonight,” South Putnam head coach Kurt Kyle said.

The problems started early for the Eagles as Danville’s leadoff hitter Chase Copeland was hit by a pitch to open the game and the Warriors put together four early runs using an Eagle error, a walk, a single and a two-run home run by Landon Skinner to dash out to the early 4-0 lead as the Eagles went down scoreless in the bottom half of the inning.

Danville stayed aggressive in the second inning. The Eagles got the first two Warrior hitters out, but another error and three singles led to Danville getting three more runs. South managed a hit in the bottom half of the inning, but could not get one across the plate and the Warriors led 7-0 ending starting pitcher, Hayden Tincher’s night.

“It’s tough right now. Hayden (Tincher) had only pitched a little over an inning this year. Kyle (Glasson) is not really a pitcher and he came in and gave us a couple of innings,” Kyle said as all of his regular pitchers were at or near the weekly pitch count limit.

Danville put the game away in the next two innings. Ethan Walls led off the third with a double and then the Warriors put three more on the board with only one more hit as the Eagles committed two errors in the inning leading to those three runs. Danville had a big 10-0 lead after just three innings.

“We work on it (fielding) all the time. It doesn’t seem to matter how many we hit them, in a game, we just make those errors. I don’t know if we get nervous or what,” Kyle said.

Another Eagle error, combined with four walks led to Danville picking up another three runs in the fourth inning. Those runs would be the last scored in the game as the Eagles Tincher and Cam Bozell were the only South Putnam players to pick up a hit and the final score would be set at 13-0.

Danville’s Skinner would have a nice day with a pair of hits including the home run. He drove in four runs and scored two. Walls also had a multi-hit game for the Warriors including a double.

“We will just keep working and hope we can get it put together by sectionals,” Kyle said as his team will first have a game against rival Greencastle on Tuesday night. That game will be for the Putnam County Bucket.

Danville 433 30 — 13 8 0

South Putnam 000 00 — 0 2 5

WP – Dibenetto 4.0, Skinner 1.0

LP – Tincher 2.0, Glasson 2.0, Harcourt 1.0

2B – Carr, Walls (DHS)

HR – Skinner (DHS)

RBI – Skinner 4, Carr 2, Groce, Wenzel, Warner, Origer, Neff (DHS)