Cougar duo leads team to victory

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Adam Hutchison and Nick Atwood were in it to win it.

The Greenfield-Central duo led the Cougars to a county victory on Monday against Eastern Hancock, 3-2. Two of those runs were back-to-back home runs over the Royals left field fence.

Hutchison and Atwood both had full counts and Atwood even got up to 11 pitches before he straightened out his long foul balls.

“They stayed short and hit the ball hard,” Greenfield-Central head coach Robbie Miller said. “It was nice to have that because we needed it.”

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The Cougars had taken a 1-0 lead in the second inning after a Carson Gibson line drive up the middle drove in Seth Robertson, who singled and stole second earlier. But the third inning was the key for the Cougars.

Hutchison and Atwood faced Royals pitcher Andrew Knoblock, and it was a close battle in each at bat.

“Andrew competes and he threw a great game,” Eastern Hancock head coach Chad Coughenour said. “He made a mistake to Nick and Adam and got the ball up a little but he pitched really well.”

It was either home runs or pop ups for the Cougars. Ten of the outs were fly outs.

Relief pitcher Addison True came in and got a big strikeout with bases loaded in the sixth inning. Three Cougars had walked and there were two outs. Atwood had another 11-pitch at bat with a few more long foul balls, making the Royals defense sweat. But True found the upper hand.

Knoblock finished with five strikeouts and True with two. Cougars Brady Mundell had six strikeouts and Grant Hinton had four.

“I thought my pitching was outstanding tonight,” Miller said. “Both of them threw the ball very well. They threw a lot of strikes and that’s all I can ask of them.”

Each only had one walk. Mundell gave up three hits and one run, Hinton gave up one hit. The fourth inning was the Royal offensive rally when two hits from True and Knoblock scored one and put one in scoring position for Ryan Burris.

“We’ve had some struggles with games getting away from us this year,” Coughenour said. “They did a great job competing with them and just staying in the ball game.”

Both teams were not short on base runners. The Royals left runners in scoring position four innings and the Cougars left 11 runners on base, five innings with potential scorers.

Class 4A Greenfield Central moves to a 7-6 record and heads to another away game at Connersville today. Class 2A Eastern Hancock drops to 4-9 and will play a Mid-eastern Conference game at Randolph Southern today.