For The Tribune
Coach Jeremy Richey said he was pleased to see his Seymour baseball team rally from five runs down to defeat Scottsburg 8-5 in a makeup game at American Legion Field on Saturday afternoon.
That win came off a 5-1 loss to Floyd Central in the fifth-place game of the Hoosier Hills Conference Tournament.
“That was a good response,” Richey said. “We were not very sharp the first part of the game. That’s the conversation we had with them that they thought just because it’s not Floyd Central Game 2 that they were just going to come out and coast.
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“It’s a good thing for us, and coach (Brandon) Tormoehlen is doing a great job with those guys. They made a lot of nice plays early on, and we finally got to their pitcher about the fourth inning and really started hitting the ball well.”
The Warriors came up with a walk and three straight hits to take a 3-0 lead in the third inning, then used three walks and two hits to score twice in the fourth.
In the bottom of the fourth, Jorge Vega was safe on a fielder’s choice and Seth Maki walked, and they scored on singles by Tyler Bloom and Janzen Bloom.
The Owls bunched four hits and took advantage of a Warrior error to score four runs in the fifth. Vega had an RBI double, and Tyler Bloom drove in two runs with a single.
In the fifth, Alan Perry doubled, Satoshi Hirose singled to drive in Perry and Vega doubled to score Hirose.
Vega had two doubles and a single, scored two runs and had two RBIs, Tyler Bloom had two singles and three RBI, and Perry, Hirose and Munoz each had two hits.
“We really got into some balls and did a nice job of timing up the pitcher,” Richey said. “The first couple innings, we hit some balls off the ends of bats, ground balls in the infield, and later in the game, the contact became much better.”
Bryce Carpenter came in to pitch with one out in the fourth inning, and after walking the first batter he faced, he got the next batter to hit into a double play and faced only seven batters over the last two innings.
“He did a great job,” Richey said. “Bryce has been put in some tough situations, coming in with bases loaded a couple times. Today, he came in, we were down and he really threw a great game. He came in and walked a batter and gave up a run, but after that walk, he really shut the door and did a good job throwing strikes.”
In the earlier game, the Highlanders scored two unearned runs in the top of the fourth before the Owls scored in the bottom of the inning.
Hirose walked, and Munoz attempted to sacrifice him to second. Munoz beat the throw to first base for a hit, and when the catcher’s throw sailed past the first baseman, Hirose scored.
The Highlanders bunched three hits, a walk and a strike out passed ball to score three runs in the sixth.
“As disappointing as it is to lose that game to Floyd Central, it’s good that our kids saw that we can play with them a whole game,” Richey said. “That’s the thing we needed to do with them. We were that way early in the game (May 5), and then we really kind of lost all our composure and that ended up being 11-1.
“Today showed that we can play with them. We saw their two best pitchers, and that’s who they are. We need to make sure that we understand that we can beat a team like that and have confidence if we draw them in a sectional.”
The Owls (11-8) will play six games this week, beginning with today’s 6 p.m. home game against Henryville.