Wildkats pound the ball, defeat Tigers

Posted: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 9:08 pm


by Peter Adelsen

Coming in to the game, the Kokomo Wildkats and Northwestern Tigers had a combined record of 16-1, but it was only the Wildkats who showed its dominance in the 12-2 win in six innings Wednesday at Highland Park.

Kokomo senior Colton Summers began the game with a six-pitch first inning as Northwestern's hitters (junior Derek Mumaw, senior Luke Miller,junior Austin Henderson) went down in order.

The Kats struck first as senior Nolan Sanburn got an RBI single to send senior Casey Shipley, who earlier stole a base, home for a run to go up 1-0 in the bottom of the first inning.

Tigers junior Bryan Beachy got a two-RBI double in the top of the second inning sending senior Danny Turner and junior Abe Ridlen home to give Northwestern a one-run lead at 2-1, but that would end up being the total run total for the Tigers.

In the bottom of the second, the Kats tacked on two more runs from its seven and eight hitters in the line-up, senior Devin Schacht and senior Nick Franklin.

"You are going to win baseball games when the bottom of the order is going to hit," Kokomo coach Steve Edwards said. "I told the kids if we can get the top of the order producing consistently and the bottom of the order keeps hitting like they are we're going to be a really, really good ball club."

The Tigers had only three at the plate in the top of the third and sixth innings and produced only three hits from the third inning forward.

"(Colton Summers) did a nice job mixing it up and getting a lot of ground balls and we were behind the count," Northwestern coach Ryan Berryman said. "Sixteen of the hits we gave up, 14 pitches were up in the zone and well over half of those we were behind in the count, so good teams will turn it on you and that's what we try to do to other teams and tonight Kokomo came after us and we gave them lots of opportunities."

Summers only allowed six hits, but he did have a rough stretch in the fourth inning when senior Danny Turner got a base hit followed by hitting the next two batters, Ridlen and junior Jake Yager, to load the bases for Northwestern, but he was off the hook when junior Matt Adams grounded out to end the inning.

Beachy, Northwestern's ace pitcher, was only able to go 2 2/3 innings in the loss and allowing 5 runs off of 8 hits.

Kokomo (9-1) next plays at 11:00 a.m. Saturday at Warsaw in a double-header game. Northwestern (8-1) next plays at home at 11:00 a.m. Saturday in the 3-Way Invite against North Miami and Clinton Central.

Scores by inning:

1 2 3 4 5 6 Runs Hits Errors

Northwestern 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 6 2

Kokomo 1 2 4 0 1 4 12 17 0

Hitting statistics:

Northwestern-

6- Mumaw 0/3

8. Miller 1/3

>3. Richards 0/0

22. Henderson 0/3

17. Turner 2/3 (R)

12. Ridlen 2/3 (HBP, R)

4. Beachy 1/3 (2B, 2 RBI)

23. Gibson 0/2

>19. Christensen 0/1

10. Yager 0/1 (HBP)

>1. Galloway 0/0

5. Adams 0/2

Kokomo-

5. Shipley 1/3 (2R, SB)

3. Kuhns 3/4 (HR, 4 RBI)

6. Weir 2/3 (BB)

>2. Frey, pinch runner for Weir (R)

25. Sanburn 2/4 (2B, RBI, R)

19. Green 1/3 (2B, 2 RBI, BB)

17. Reynolds 1/4 (RBI)

>9. Wray, pinch runner for Reynolds (R)

22. Schacht 3/4 (2R)

24. Franklin 4/4 (2 RBI, 2R)

1. Sawyer 0/3 (R)