Central scores late to outlast St. Anne-Donovan in pitchers’ duel

ST. ANNE − Runs were tough to come by in Tuesday’s River Valley Conference matchup between St. Anne-Donovan and Central. As the innings went by, and with a pair of pitchers in command on the mound, it seemed like whichever team could scratch out a run first would take the win.

In the top of the sixth, right after Central’s Derek Meier had been called out on a close play at third base for the first out of the inning, Brayden Meents hit a ball into the wind in right field.

Cardinal right fielder Ben Harpster managed to track the ball down toward the line after a long run, but the ball glanced off his glove, and Meents wound up at third base. Two pitches later, pinch runner Griffin Parks came home on a wild pitch.

Central pitcher Blake Chandler tossed a scoreless bottom of the sixth and in the seventh, after the Cardinals put runners on second and third with two outs, induced a groundout to end the game. Chandler got the win over St. Anne-Donovan’s Carter Ponton as both pitchers worked seven innings without allowing an earned run.

“That’s pretty fun to see those two aces go up together like that,” Central head coach Brian Kohn said.

The Comets improved to 3-5. Kohn said that it felt like team had been unlucky over the first couple of weeks and it felt nice to be on the other end of a tough game.

“We haven’t had much luck at all,” he said. “If we’ve had any luck it’s bad luck, and we finally got one ball in the dirt, and it squirted away so we could score a run.”

The win was the first of the season for Chandler in his third start, although he similarly had been dominant in the season opener, allowing only four hits and one run over seven innings in what would turn out to be an extra-inning loss.

On Tuesday he again allowed only four hits and recorded eight strikeouts with one walk.

“I feel like we came out with not a ton of energy, but picked it up toward the end and were able to come out with the win,” Chandler said. “I threw a pretty good game, was able to locate well today. The arm felt good, so it was just a good game.”

Meier, Meents, Rocco Trevino and Mayson Mitchell each had a hit for Central. Meier, Mitchell and Noah Vining each stole a base.

St. Anne-Donovan fell to 4-2. Cassen Berryhill was 2 for 4 out of the leadoff spot, while Preston Harrington-DeWitt hit a single and Harpster had a double.

Ponton fell to 1-2, despite the strong outing, also allowing four hits and an unearned run while recording nine strikeouts.

“He had a good fastball/breaking ball mix, had a couple nice changeups in there, and he did a fantastic job,” coach Ike Speiser said. “We let him down defensively, and the one run was unearned, but overall he did a really good job of getting ground balls in key spots with runners on base and eliminating the damage on base hits.”

Speiser said he has been pleased with the team’s start overall, even with some inconsistencies offensively, but he expects that to even out a bit as the season continues.

“Our pitching is really what’s going to carry us, and we just kind of need our bats to follow through,” he said. “We’re putting up good at bats right now but it’s not falling our way, but that’s baseball. I expect that our bats will come around.”

As for Central, there are the usual early-season adjustments to go through. Kohn said the team aiming to keep steadily improving as the season rolls on and some of the new faces continue to mesh with in new roles.

“We’re learning as we go. We’ve got a lot of juniors and sophomores playing. A lot of returning starters, but we’re learning.”