Ottawa stays unbeaten in I-8 play with night win over Sandwich

OTTAWA - There is an old saying in baseball about a hitter taking what the pitcher gives him.

The Ottawa baseball team did that during Tuesday night’s Interstate Eight Conference game against Sandwich here at King Field, as OHS scattered in 10 hits around drawing 15 walks and five hit batsmen to improve to 6-1 overall and 4-0 in the league with a 14-4 victory in six innings under the lights.

The Pirates exploded out of the gates, scoring seven times in the bottom of the first, then added six more tallies in the fourth before invoking the 10-run rule with a single tally in the sixth.

“Sometimes if you have a big inning early like we did tonight, minds can start wandering, but that didn’t happen with us. They stayed engaged and were able to put together another big inning in the fourth and finish things off with one [run] in the sixth.”

—  Ottawa baseball coach Brent Moore

The Indians (0-4, 0-4) scored all of their runs in the third.

“We preach at practice and in games about putting quality at-bats together. Whether it’s a base hit or moving a runner up with an out, if as a hitter you can see six or seven pitches each time up, especially with the pitch-count rule these days, you are doing your team a service,” said Ottawa coach Brent Moore. “I thought we were very disciplined at the plate tonight and took what was given to them.

“There were some long innings tonight, but I thought the kids kept their heads in the game all the way through. Sometimes if you have a big inning early like we did tonight, minds can start wandering, but that didn’t happen with us. They stayed engaged and were able to put together another big inning in the fourth and finish things off with one [run] in the sixth.”

In the Ottawa first, Jace Addis led off with a walk and scored the first tally on a throwing error on Evan Evola’s single. Four consecutive bases on balls drawn by Michael Bruner, Luke Cushing, Adam Weitzel and Ty Trovero made it 2-0. Anthony Cooper and Levi Sholders added two-run singles in the frame to give the hosts a big cushion.

Pirates starting pitcher Jack Olson went the first two frames, allowing just two walks and fanning six.

Sandwich made it a three-run game in the third, starting with a single by Austin Marks, who later scored on a wild pitch. Sam Palumbo picked up an RBI on a grounder to second, and Gabe Prado followed with an RBI base hit — the visitors’ only hit in the game — to make it 7-4.

Ottawa winning pitcher Anthony Cooper fanned all six batters he faced in the fourth and fifth.

The Pirates plated six in the fourth, with Jake Serby providing an RBI groundout, Sholders a run-scoring single, Bruner a hit by pitch RBI with the bases loaded, Cushing a two-run base hit and Trovero an RBI infield single. In the sixth, Cooper’s soft line drive to left-center drove home Wenzel with the game-winning run.

For the game, Wentzel and Cooper reached base five times, while Addis and Trovero found first base four times.

“I was really proud of the energy the kids had from start to finish, and we did some good things today. Our defense was pretty solid, and we put together a pretty good third inning at the plate,” said Sandwich coach Jason Van Pelt. “Two of our three pitchers tonight haven’t pitched in three years, so tonight was an opportunity for them to get experience, plus the fact that we have five games this week and we have to find guys to throw innings.

“We are just such a young team, and I have to do a lot of on-field coaching. We have kids coming back off quarantine, guys getting back into things after football and just haven’t had a lot of time to go over things we would in a normal season. All that said, we have gotten better in each game we’ve played, and hopefully we keep that trend going. That’s our focus.”

Both ballclubs are scheduled to return to action Wednesday — Ottawa at Kaneland and Sandwich at Plano.