FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon did not expect it to be easy.
The Marauders got the unexpected for much of Tuesday’s non-conference baseball game with defending Class 4A state champion Fishers.
Then, one hit and three outs away from finishing with a Marauder win due to the five-inning mercy rule, they got what was expected.
Leading 9-0 going into the fifth inning, Mt. Vernon, all of a sudden, found itself in a 9-9 tie, but a group coach Ryan Carr calls “unbelievably relentless” — he even made shirts with the two-word 2019 team slogan — bounced right back to pick up a 13-11 victory.
“It was a lot more tense than I wanted it to be,” Carr said. “You know it’s Fishers. They won state last year. They’re going to be really good. In the back of your mind, you’re up nine, but there’s a creeping feeling that, if they get a bloop and a blast, they’re back in it. They didn’t get a blast, but some weird baseball stuff happened and they were right back in the game.”
The Tigers scored nine in the fifth, doing it on just four hits, but Mt. Vernon answered quickly, scoring four times in its half of the inning.
Jake Stank opened the frame with a walk. He moved to third on a single from Austin Sumner, who later stole second base. Leadoff hitter Nolan Bowser followed with an RBI-double. Jake Stadler had a sacrifice fly and Sam McCarty singled to left field to score Bowser. McCarty stole second base and scored on a two-out single from Payton Bovard, who had five RBIs in the game.
“My motivation was, they won the state championship last year,” Stadler said. “We went up 9-0 after four innings and they came back. To some people that might be daunting, but in my mind and everybody else in that dugout, we knew we could win that game from the beginning and we weren’t going to let those nine runs in that inning stop us.”
Stadler helped preserve the win with his defense behind the plate.
Fishers had cut it to 13-11 and had a runner on and only one out in the sixth. When Tigers’ base-runner Daniel Owens tried to swipe second base on a pitch in the dirt that got away from Stadler, the junior backstop threw a dart down to shortstop Bowser, who made the tag at second base for the second out of the inning.
Stadler did the same thing in the seventh.
With a runner on first base and one out, he made a backhand stab of another pitch in the dirt. Fishers Nick Lukac had already committed to go to second, but when he noticed Stadler made the play, he was hung out to dry. The Marauders worked the run down and tagged Lukac out.
“I don’t blame him (for taking off),” Stadler said. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to scoop it. Luckily, I was able to and catch him sleeping over at first base.”
Shipley, who came in relief in the fifth, struck out Collin Shelton to end the game. It was just Shipley’s second varsity outing on the mound. He threw one inning in Monday’s win over Beech Grove.
“I was glad I was able to come in and throw strikes, to help us finish that inning we were struggling in and then close it out” Shipley said.
He was strong at the plate, too. Shipley had one RBI in each of his first three at-bats. He was one of seven Marauders with hits and one of four that had multi-hit games.
“I think our lineup is pretty good from top to bottom,” Shipley said. “We’re all seeing the ball well right now.”
Mt. Vernon jumped out with four runs each in the first two innings.
Bovard had a three-run first-inning double as the Marauders jumped on Fishers’ starter Drew Louden for four hits in the inning.
Two Tigers errors and timely Marauder hitting led to the productive second. Bowser opened with a single and stolen base. After two errors, Bowser scored on the second, Hunter Dobbins walked to load the bases. Bovard picked up an RBI on a fielder’s choice. Shipley drove one in with a sacrifice fly and Thomas Obergfell topped the frame off with an RBI-single.
“Fishers is one of those teams you measure yourself by,” Carr added. “That’s tough for them, because everybody has a target on them.
“We’ve got some really tough teams on our schedule. We just have to try to keep on knocking them down and knocking them down. Once we learn that we can, we have a good chance of making things happen in the future.”
It was Mt. Vernon’s fourth straight win. The Marauders are 5-3 overall. Fishers dropped to 5-8.
It will be a big one for both teams on Friday as Mt. Vernon travels to New Palestine for a Hoosier Heritage Conference doubleheader. Both teams go into the game 3-1 in league play, one-half game behind league-leader Pendleton Heights. The twinbill starts at 5:30 p.m.
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Mt. Vernon 13, Fishers 11
F(5-8);000;092;0;—;11;9;2
MV(5-3);440;140;X;—;13;12;1
WP: Shaun Shipley. LP: Mason Sweeney.
2B: Payton Bovard, Nolan Bowser (MV); JP Preston, Nick Lukac, Collin Shelton, JJ Woolwine (F). 3B: Kaid Muth (F). RBI: Payton Bovard 5, Shaun Shipley 3, Sam McCarty 2, Nolan Bowser, Jake Stadler, Thomas Obergfell (MV); Kyle Brenczewski 2, JP Preston 2, Nick Lukac 2, Collin Shelton, Dom Oliverio, Grant Whetsel (F).
Notable: Payton Bovard 2-for-4 5 RBI, 2 R, 1 SB; Shaun Shipley 2-for-3 1SB 3 RBI, 2.1 IP, 1 K, winning pitcher; Sam McCarty 3-for-4 2 SB, 4 R, 2 RBI; Nolan Bowser 2-for-4 2 R, 1 SB, 1 RBI (MV)
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