It was back to baseball for the Miami Trace Panthers on Wednesday, April 18 with a home game against the McClain Tigers.
Miami Trace’s Austin Brown threw a no-hitter as the Panthers defeated the Tigers, 10-0 in five innings.
“Austin kept the ball low and pitched pretty well to a good-hitting McClain team,” Miami Trace head coach Rob Smith said. “That’s been one of their strengths this year, scoring a lot of runs.
“He kept the ball low, had a lot of strikeouts and we played good defense,” Smith said. “This is a big week for us. We go to Chillicothe (Thursday) and Hillsboro Friday.
“McClain is a solid baseball team,” Smith said. “They always play us well here, so, it was a good win for us.”
The Panthers, now 10-2 overall, have won their last seven consecutive games. The Panthers won 18-11 at Eastern Brown Saturday. The second game of that scheduled doubleheader was rained out.
Miami Trace is in first place in the Frontier Athletic Conference with a record of 5-1.
“Chillicothe is our next focus,” Smith said. “They have a nice baseball team. They put it on us the first time we played.”
One of the challenges that all teams have had to face this spring, is the seemingly unceasing cold weather that has forced numerous postponements and caused many practices to be held indoors.
“We never get to practice outside,” Smith said. “We were getting our momentum, starting to play decent baseball, then you go back inside for three or four days. It’s hard to be consistent. I’m proud of the way our kids played.”
Brown struck out 10 and walked three in his five innings of pitching.
Salyers pitched 1.1 innings in the start for McClain suffering the loss. He allowed six runs (three earned) with five walks, no strikeouts and one hit.
Faulconer pitched 3.1 innings with five hits, four runs (two earned), one walk and no strikeouts.
Offensively for Miami Trace: Brady Wallace, 2-4, hbp, 3 runs, 1 rbi; Drew Batson, 0-2, 1 run, 3 rbi; Josh Gilmore, 1-2, 2 rbi, 1 2b; Heath Cockerill, 0-1, 1 run, 2 bb; Cody Brightman, 0-3; Austin Brown, 0-3; Dalton Mayer, 0-3; Gavin Taulbee, 1-2, 1 bb, 2 runs; Austin Mathews, 2-2, 1 bb, 3 runs.
