Ethan Ianni
The weather maybe have been cool and windy mixed in with on and off showers, but that didn’t prove to be a factor much for the Columbus East baseball team Thursday night against Seymour.
The Olympians tallied four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to seal an 8-2 win over the Owls.
Ethan Ianni got the start on the bump for East. He went six innings, allowing two runs off of eight hits and six strikeouts.
“He did a really nice job for us,” East coach Jon Gratz said. “He left a few balls over the plate early, but overall, it was a great game. It was what we expected out of him the last two years. He got the job done again.”
The Olympians (2-2-1) got the timely hits necessary and took advantage of Seymour errors to never trail in the game.
In the first run, East got on the board with a Josh Luedeke RBI-single. They had the bases loaded, but the Owls got themselves out of the jam. After Seymour tied it in the top of the second, Blake Borkhardt hit an RBI-single to give the Olympians a 2-1 lead.
Dylan Niese had a sacrifice fly-RBI in the fourth inning, and Borkhardt added another RBI-single in the fifth to build a 4-2 lead. That led to East shutting the door on the Owls with four runs in the bottom of the sixth.
“We talked about the last couple games, we’ve been leaving a lot of guys out on base. We did again today too early in the game,” Gratz said. “We finally knocked them in during the sixth inning when we needed that little bit of a cushion.”
Will Rieckers
Will Rieckers went 3 for 3 for the Olympians. Luedeke went 2 for 3 with two RBIs, Borkhardt went 2 for 4 with two RBIs, Harry Major and Alex McComb each went 2 for 4 and Dylan Niece had three RBIs.
East was scheduled to face off against Floyd Central on Saturday, but that game has been postponed to Thursday with the expected inclement and cold weather approaching.
Despite the unpleasant weather the Olympians have been playing under most of the season, Gratz was excited about the win.
“Every one of our games, it’s been the weather,” he said. “Center Grove was like 40 mph winds. We were playing with about 35 (degrees) in Anderson, and Cathedral was just like (today).”
