BROWNSTOWN — Jack Pennington hit a grand slam home run in the top of the first inning to give Seymour and early lead in a 6-1 win over Brownstown Central in a non-conference baseball game Tuesday afternoon.

The Owls took advantage of Dalton Reedy’s wildness on the mound as walks to Aaron Holt, Bret Perry and Brady Harpe proceeded Pennington’s first home run of the season.

Pennington spoke on the big swing of the bat.

“That was my first grand slam. I got into a 1-2 count, I was crowding the plate a little bit,” he said. “I was hoping he wouldn’t throw me another off-speed pitch and he threw me a fastball right down the middle on 3-2.”

Perry’s walk in the first inning broke the career school record for walks. It was his 60th and broke the record of 59 held by Tim Pollert since 1985.

The Owls received nine walks and had three batters hit by pitch. Owls Coach Jeremy Richey said he liked his batters being patient, but maybe a little too patience.

“We’ve got to be patient. The frustrating part tonight was, sometimes in these games when you get walked bunch it kind of takes away a little bit of your aggressiveness, and I think we allowed some early strikes to go by that we didn’t swing at.

“We had way too many at bats with weak contact when we were ahead in the count, 3-1, 2-0. We talk about those counts all the time, and being aggressive and driving the ball, and we’re just not doing that right now.”

Tylan Nicholson walked in the fourth inning. He was replaced by pinch-runner Sawyer Smith, who scored on a single by Perry. Gavin Leavy accounted for Seymour’s final run with his fourth home run of the season leading off the fifth inning.

Mikey Wright pitched the first six inning and held the Braves to five singles while striking out nine and walking one.

Richey said, “That’s two games in a row (he has been strong). Since Madison he has been locked in, not walking many people, and when he is throwing his slider for strikes he is tough to hit. I think he did a really nice job today, on a day we really needed him to because we weren’t very good offensively.

“It was good to see Mikey go out and be Mikey. He has found his confidence again, and that’s really good going into next week with the conference tournament.”

The Braves missed some scoring opportunities as they left runners on third base in the fifth and sixth innings, and a runner on second in the fourth.

After Dylan Thompson retired the first two batters in the bottom of the seventh, Preston Garrison singled past the shortstop. Garrison advanced to second on a walk. He stole third and when the catcher’s throw sailed past the third baseman, Garrison scored.

The Braves turned two double plays and threw a runner out at the plate, and another runner out trying to steal second which left Coach Duane Higgs pleased with the defense.

“I’ve been pretty happy like I told them. We didn’t execute one steal, but other than that I was pretty happy because that had not been our Achilles heal.

“We’ve had strings that we are a really good offensive team, and we’ve pitched it well at times, we’ve played the glove well here and there.

“Now it’s time to put all phases of the game together and really start clicking as we approach the month of May.”

Higgs said he thought Reedy did a good job of holding his composure after the rocky start as faced only seven batters in the second and third innings and didn’t walk a batter.

“I thought he handled himself well. He knew what today was. He’s been throwing really well (coming into the game with a record of 4-1). He was a little amped up and he was uncharacteristically wild and put himself in a jam.

“I really like how he responded after that, and that’s what guys get paid millions for in major league baseball, when you don’t have your good stuff, how do you compete and stay in the game. He showed great composure.

“We didn’t have some at bats go our way to make it a little closer.”

The Braves left eight runners on base. Trent Lowery and Garrison both had two hits.

The Owls are 11-3 heading into Thursday’s game at Floyd Central.

“It’s nice to come over here and get a 6-1 win, but we’ve got a long way to go because that one was just a game today,” Richey said. “It wasn’t pretty. There wasn’t a lot of energy out of our guys. We’ve got to be a lot better and going to Floyd Central on Thursday that that’s going to be the case. We’ve got to play with emotion and passion every game and I didn’t think we did that day.”

The Braves (9-7) will play a Mid-Southern game at Corydon on Thursday.

Seymour (11-3) at Brownstown Central (9-7)

Seymour; 6

Brownstown; 1

Seymour hits-Aaron Holt, Bret Perry, Gavin Leavy, Jack Pennington; HR-Pennington, Leavy, RBIs- Pennington 4, Perry, Leavy; runs- Holt, Perry, Harpe, Pennington, Leavy, Sawyer Smith

Brownstown hits 2-Trent Lowery, Preston Garrison, 1-Grant Killey, Ethan Garland; run-Garrison

Pitching: Seymour- Mikey Wright 6 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 9 K, 1 W; Dylan Thompson 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 K, 2 W

Brownstown- Dalton Reedy 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 K, 7 W, Jaxson Johnson 3 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 K, 2 W