TULLAHOMA, TN — On their first full day down in Tennessee for their annual spring break trip, Crawfordsville baseball played two games where CHS went 2-0 on the day. Cville got things started out Thursday afternoon with 10-7 win against Waubonsie Valley and followed that up with 5-0 win later that evening against Tullahoma.
Late inning surge powers CHS past Warriors
A five-run sixth innings propelled Crawfordsville past Waubonsie Valley in game one Thursday afternoon. Crawfordsville got their offense going early scoring a pair of runs in the first inning and scored three more in the third to take a 5-0 lead.
The bottom of the third proved to be a shaky inning for CHS as after recording an easy out number one, an error allowed the Wildcats to then follow that up with a single, double, walk, single in order and just like that the Wildcats evened up the score at 5-5.
Fast forward to the sixth inning with the score still tied at 5-5, the Athenians used four walks and a pair of Wildcat errors to score five runs of their own as they took a 10-5 lead. Waubonsie scored two in the bottom of seventh but the Athenians had a big enough lead to hold on for the win.
“Usually early on in the season you’re pitching is ahead of your hitting, but so far it’s been the opposite for us,” Crawfordsville coach Brett Motz said. “We just had so many guys step up in this win at the plate. Cale Coursey had a ton of big hits to get us going early. The momentum shifted then with them scoring those five runs. I give our guys a ton of credit for not getting down and continuing to battle.”
In the win the CHS offense tallied 14 hits. Cale Coursey led the way with a 3-4 day which included two doubles and a triple, two RBI’s and two runs scored. Bryce Dowell, Wyatt Motz, AJ Hall, Kale Wemer, and Kaiden Underwood all collected two hits as well.
On the mound it was Wemer who got the ball for CHS and he delivered six strong innings where he struck out seven while only walking one. He gave up six hits and only three earned runs.
“It was huge that Kale Wemer came out after they put up the five runs and had a shut down inning,” Motz said of his junior pitcher. “That shifted the momentum back to our direction along with some great defensive play at short from Jude Coursey. When you combine all of those things along with us taking advantage of some of their miscues where we put pressure on their defense, it was a good way to get the trip started.”
Getting the start for the Wildcats was Pepperdine University commit Carter King. The Athenians tabbed him for 10 hits over 3.2 innings and five earned runs. Playing this type of competition is another reason why the Athenians wanted to come and play down here.
“That’s why we come down here is to play against some great teams and great players,” Motz said. “They were bigger and more athletic than us and had some D1 talent. That’s what good teams like us do though. We didn’t back down when faced with some adversity and came away with a good win.”
Coursey delivers complete game shutout for Athenians
Sometimes the greatness of a pitcher shows when they don’t have their best stuff and still go out and have a dominant performance. That was the case in game two of the day when Cale Coursey took the mound for CHS against Tullahoma, TN. While the Athenians came away with a 5-0 win, Coursey struggled early with his command as thru three innings as he tallied four walks and three strikeouts.
The next four innings for the standout senior were like the Coursey that Athenians are used to seeing as he fired a complete game shutout in the win while striking out 12 and giving up just two hits.
“I think he was little too excited and was trying to be too fine with his pitches early on,” Motz said of the slow start. “Once it got down to the last few innings, he flipped that switch and was determined as ever to finish the game. He showed me the competitor that he has been for the last three years.”
At the plate Coursey delivered two more hits and added two more RBI’s. Jude Coursey recorded two more RBI’s for the Athenians with him and Motz each recording a hit.
The offensive output for CHS was a little different from the first game as it was more of the small ball approach. It was the good ole Athenian way of get em on, get em over, and get em home.
“That team was good and competitive and we just were able to manufacture runs,” Motz said. “We’re going to have to do that even more down the road. When our pitchers have their best stuff if we can score just a couple of runs, we know we’ll put ourself in a good position.”
The two wins on the day for CHS improve their overall record to 3-0 on the season. They’ll continue their spring break trip on Friday with a single game scheduled for 4 pm central (5 pm EST before concluding the trip on Saturday with one final game in the morning.
All games can be watched on the Crawfordsville Athletics YouTube.
