The Annawan-Wethersfield baseball team came out swinging a hot bat, but it didn’t take long for Putnam County to come alive and never look back as the Panthers cruised to an 8-2 victory Saturday to win the Class 1A Annawan-Wethersfield Regional championship in Annawan.
The Titans were swinging the bats with confidence as Nic Thurston doubled to centerfield and then Jaton Huber crushed a shot to right center that scored Thurston to go ahead 1-0.
Moments later, Huber score on a wild pitch from Johnathon Stunkel to put the Titans ahead 2-0 after the top of the first inning.
“It was nice to come out and mark in the first inning,” A-W coach Jason Burkiewicz said. “We took some good swings off a really good pitcher, but we couldn’t keep it going after that.”
The Panthers didn’t waste any time getting their bats going either as leadoff hitter Traxton Mattingly crushed a leadoff home run in the bottom half of the inning to cut the lead in half after one inning of action.
“Coach (Chris) Newsome told us, ‘Hey, we’re going to come up and hit the crap out of the ball,’ and I was lucky enough to hit one right away and get some of that momentum back,” Mattingly said.
After a leadoff double from Devon Horrie and an infield single from Maddux Heitzler, the Titans were turned away by the Panthers with no runs crossing the plate.
Peyton Barto led off the bottom half of the inning with a bloop single and then moved to second on a second on a sacrifice bunt from Carter Hochstatter.
That brought up Wyatt Zellers, who hit an RBI double to right field that scored Bart to tie the game at 2.
“To respond the way we did was big,” Newsome said. “I mean, Jonathon (Stunkel) wasn’t pitching bad in that first. Annawan-Wethersfield was just making some great contact, but Traxton helped get some momentum back right away to get us going.”
After the Titans were held scoreless in the top of the third, the Panthers took control of the game in the bottom half of the inning.
Stunkel helped himself out with a leadoff triple to right after a long at-bat. Kade Zimmerlein then hit an RBI groundout to score Stunkel for a 3-2 lead.
Maddox Poole singled to left and then stole second before Barto walked. That brought up Hochstatter, who singled to left to score Poole and extend the lead to 4-2.
Zellers hit a two-run single past first base to score Barto and Hochstatter to put Putnam County ahead 6-2.
“After Traxton hit that home run the dugout just got going,” Zellers said. “I just saw the ball well today and was able to connect for us.”
Two batters after an Eli King single, Mattingly once again smoked the ball for a two-run single to score Zellers and King to make it 8-2.
Neither team got much going in the fourth inning and then in the fifth Thurston double to center as the ball was misplayed before Myer Heitzler walked, but the Titans were unable to capitalize with any runs.
Putnam County had a leadoff double from Zellers and Jake Furar was hit by a pitch, but were unable to add any insurance runs going into the sixth.
From there, relief pitcher Zimmerlien and the Panthers defense shut the door on the Titans season and took the 8-2 regional championship victory.
Zellers led PC with three hits and three RBIs, while Mattingly had two hits and three RBIs. Stunkel took the victory on the mound, giving up two runs and striking out seven.
Putnam County (22-11) returns home to Granville to play Newark (12-18) in a sectional semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.