On a beautiful day to be out of doors, the Miami Trace Panthers varsity baseball team hosted the Golden Eagles of Madison Plains.
It was Senior Day and the Panthers recognized their four seniors, Tyler Eggleton, Austin Brown, Austin Mathews and Drew Batson.
The Panthers then proceeded to go out and win the game, 9-0.
Miami Trace (13-5) scored all the runs it would need with three in the bottom of the first.
The Panthers tacked on two runs in the third, three in the fourth and one in the fifth.
In the first for the Panthers, Connor Bucher led off with a single and went to second on an error.
With one out, Cody Brightman singled, scoring Bucher.
With two away, Josh Gilmore singled, scoring Brightman.
Luke Henry hit a double that scored Gilmore.
In the third inning, Dalton Mayer led off with a walk and Gilmore had a single.
Henry walked to load the bases.
Austin Brown hit a sacrifice fly to score Mayer.
Tyler Eggleton came up with a sacrifice fly that scored Gilmore, giving the Panthers a 5-0 lead.
In the fourth inning for the Panthers, after the first batter was retired, Drew Batson had a single.
Brightman walked and Mayer doubled, scoring Batson and Brightman to make it 7-0.
After a walk to Gilmore, Henry hit a sacrifice fly, bringing Mayer home.
In the bottom of the fifth, with one out, Bucher hit a double.
Brightman drove him in with a single to right field.
Brown started and was the winning pitcher for the Panthers.
He pitched four innings with three strikeouts, one walk, one hit and one hit batsman.
Bucher pitched one inning with two hits, no walks and one strikeout.
Eggleton pitched the final two innings for the Panthers.
He struck out one batter, hit one batter, with no walks and no hits.
“It was a good non-league win,” Miami Trace head coach Rob Smith said. “They’ve been winning here lately. They come in on a little hot streak.
“We came out and scored early and played good defense for the most part,” Smith said. “We needed to get this one because we have some tough games coming up the rest of the week.
“We go to Whiteoak (Tuesday) and they’ve won 20 games,” Smith said. “Kettering Alter is here Wednesday and then we play Lynchburg-Clay on Thursday. They won the other side of the league that Whiteoak is in and they’ve won 17 or 18 games.
“Whiteoak will be a good test for us to see where we’re at,” Smith said.
“Today was a nice team effort,” Smith said. “Brownie did his job. Then, I wanted to get Connor Bucher, a promising freshman, an inning. He came in and did a nice job.
“Tyler Eggleton got to pitch two innings for us,” Smith said. “We expected Tyler would pitch more this year, but, just the way the schedule’s been so wide spread. He did a nice job.”
Smith also spoke about the four Panther seniors.
“It’s a solid group of seniors,” Smith said. “Four solid kids, program kids who turned out to be very good ball players. They are all good in the classroom, good, quality citizens. Three of them (Mathews, Batson and Brown) are going on to play college baseball.
“It’s a senior class that we’re going to miss around here,” Smith said. “They’ve done a lot of good things. Last year they helped us win a league championship. We fell one game short this year.”
Hillsboro clinched the outright Frontier Athletic Conference championship Monday with an 8-0 win over the McClain Tigers. Hillsboro finishes 8-2 in the FAC.
“Hats off to Hillsboro,” Smith said. “We went through that mini stretch, it wasn’t that we played badly, we just didn’t play well enough. We’ve played well the last two and a half weeks and that’s what you want heading into the tournament. We’ve got some really good competition coming up before we play McClain in the tournament (at Miami Trace Monday at 5 p.m.)”
RHE
MP 000 000 0 — 0 4 1
MT 302 310 x — 9 11 1
Offensively for Miami Trace: Connor Bucher, 2-4, 2 runs, 2b; Drew Batson, 1-3, 1 bb, 1 run; Cody Brightman, 2-3, 2 runs, 2 rbi, 2 sb; Dalton Mayer, 1-2, 2 runs, 2 rbi, 2 bb, 2b; Josh Gilmore, 2-3, 2 runs, 1 rbi, 1 sb, 1 bb; Luke Henry, 1-1, 2 runs, 2b, 1 rbi, sac fly; Jake Hoppes, 1-1, 1 sb; Austin Brown, 0-1, 1 rbi, 2 bb, 1 sb, sac fly; Tyler Eggleton, 0-3, sac fly, 1 rbi; Austin Mathews, 1-4.
Offensively for Madison Plains: Gammell, 2 hits; Vallery, 1 hit; Hamilton, 1 hit
