FORTVILLE — Things didn’t go quite to plan Friday night for Greenfield-Central.
On the road against county rival Mt. Vernon for a key midsason Hoosier Heritage Conference matchup, the Cougars’ offense struggled to come up with any big hits.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
Against a Marauders team boasting strong pitching and defense to go along with a potent offense, there wasn’t much room for error.
Mt. Vernon got on the board in the third inning, and that first run would be all they’d need. The hosts shut out Greenfield-Central, 5-0, picking up a big win against the Class 4A No. 15 Cougars.
“The last game, we talked about being a 10-1 team. We talked about playing and winning like a 10-1 team,” Mt. Vernon coach Veronica Kirby said. “We can’t come out here like we played against Lapel. We beat Lapel 11-5. Lapel is not a Greenfield. We needed to play a better game against those teams. If we want people to respect us, we have to play like that. I felt like tonight we came out here and we played like a 10-1 team.”
The win moved the Marauders to 11-1 and 2-1 in the HHC, keeping them within striking distance of undefeated conference leaders New Palestine and Pendleton Heights.
“It was really important for us,” junior shortstop Sydnee Perry said. “We were talking about how they were ranked, and how we want to show teams that we can play at that next level. It was a big mindset to us to get past this and prove to ourselves that we’re really at that next level.”
Perry led the Mt. Vernon offense, going 3-for-3 with a pair of doubles, two runs scored and an RBI. Her first double, in the third inning, provided what proved to be the winning run.
The Cougars couldn’t seem to get going on offense. They led off four different innings with singles, including the first three, but stranded eight runners in total, including four in scoring position.
Part of that was due to pitcher Karlee Franklin and a stout Marauders defense. Part of it was simply deviating from the gameplan.
“We knew what she was going to pitch,” Greenfield-Central coach Jason Stewart said. “We tell them how to hit it, and for the most part, most of them took their own approach. It failed. She’s a pretty good pitcher and she’ll hit her spots. If you try to hit pitches where they are not supposed to physically be hit, you’re going to do what we did tonight and struggle.”
Franklin pitched a complete-game shutout, throwing seven innings and striking out seven with two walks. She improves to 9-1 on the year, lowering her ERA down from the 2.20 it was coming into Friday’s game.
She has been a force in the circle all season, now with 67 strikeouts to 10 walks.
“It’s great. Karlee’s awesome,” Perry said. “She really gives us confidence in the box, too, to have that room to relax for a second and not have to always come back from being down. We’re always close. It’s very nice to have her.”
The Marauders doubled their lead in the fourth inning after a two-out walk to Lauryn Helderbrand. Chloee Yocum hit a shot deep to center that easily cleared the fence, a two-run home run that pushed the advantage to four.
A leadoff double from Perry in the fifth led to another run. She stole third on a heads-up base-running play and was driven in by an RBI single from Macy Griner for the final run of the game.
“We did a really good job of staying focused. We didn’t get ahead of ourselves, we played our game like we needed to,” Kirby said. “We had great chemistry going into this. The girls really stepped up with the pitching, made the adjustments that needed to occur for us to be successful.”
Lexi Rankin threw five innings for the Cougars, allowing five runs on nine hits and striking out one while walking one.
Mt. Vernon finished with 10 total hits, three each from Perry and Haley Kissee, two from Bennett, and one each from Griner and Yocum. They had five extra-base hits between Yocum’s home run and four doubles.
Macy Francis was the only Cougar with multiple hits, getting on base twice with a double and a single. As a team, Greenfield-Central finished with six hits, with Kensie Bradley, Jessie Rankin, Ellie Ewald and Hannah Holden each notching singles.
“They took a different approach and their approach didn’t work tonight,” Stewart said of his team. “Hopefully they learn from that, and if we see them here in a couple weeks in sectionals, they adjust.”
Greenfield-Central falls to 12-3 on the year and 2-2 in the HHC. They travel to New Castle for another conference game on Monday.
The Marauders will try to ride the momentum from Friday’s rivalry win when they host Noblesville on Monday for a nonconference matchup.
“We played great defense. When you have great pitching and great defense, you’re going to shut out good teams,” Kirby said. “If we can keep doing those things, put a few on the board here and there, we’re going to keep this whole winning thing up.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Boxscore” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Mt. Vernon 5, Greenfield-Central 0
GC (12-3, 2-2);000;000;0;—;0;6;1
MV (11-1, 2-1);002;210;X;—;5;10;0
WP: Karlee Franklin (9-1). LP: Lexi Rankin (8-2).
HR: Chloee Yocum (MV). 2B: Sydnee Perry 2, Samantha Bennett, Haley Kissee (MV); Macy Francis (GC). RBI: Yocum 2, Perry, Bennett, Macy Griner (MV).
Notable: Franklin 7 IP, 7 K, 2 BB, 5 H, 0 R; Perry 3-for-3, 2 2B, RBI, 2 R; Kissee 3-for-4, 2B (MV). Macy Francis 2-for-3, 2B (GC).
[sc:pullout-text-end]