Franklin County baseball travels to Greensburg for Sectional 29

By Tyler Whittamore, Sports Editor

GREENSBURG -- The Franklin County Wildcats’ baseball team opened the Greensburg Sectional with a resounding 11-4 win over the Batesville Bulldogs on Thursday night, May 24.

It was an important win for Franklin County. The team performed poorly in the EIAC this year and split the season series with Batesville.

The Wildcats were set to be the visiting team and wasted little time announcing their presence in game two of the Greensburg Sectional.

The first two batters were retired, and Batesville starter Travis Enzinger looked sharp, but a hit-by-pitch and four straight singles led to three runs for Franklin County. Travis Miller and Donovan Cecil each had RBI hits, and one run scored on an error by the third-baseman.

“It was huge for us to get up on them right away,” Windle said. “It kept the momentum going and it gave our guys confidence.”

Mitchell Sorrells started on the mound for the Wildcats, and after striking out the first batter of the game, walked the next batter on four straight pitches. That runner came around to score on an RBI double by Jacob Simon, but Sorrells retired the next two hitters to get out of the inning. The Bulldogs were shut down offensively for the next four innings.

Enzinger cruised through the next two innings, but his team let him down in the fourth.

With one out, his defense committed two straight errors, which were followed by three straight hits and five runs for Franklin County.

Casey Wagner and Brett Campbell each had run-scoring doubles, and Ken Jones had an RBI groundout.

“(Enzinger) did a really good job on the mound,” said Wildcats’ head coach Tony Windle. “(His team) made errors on high pop-ups.”

He added, “As we go on in the tournament, other teams are not going to make those mistakes.”

Zach Sizemore got his second hit of the night in the sixth inning, this time scoring Sorrells from third, to give Franklin County a 9-1 lead.

Batesville closed the gap a little in its half of the sixth. Austin Westerfield led off the inning by working a five-pitch walk. After advancing to second on a wild pitch, Westerfield scored on the next play when Noah Gausman cracked a ground-rule double to left field. The Bulldogs added a sacrifice fly and another RBI double to close the gap to 9-4.

The Wildcats were not to be outdone, however. Ben Wewe collected a one-out double to left field, then scored on the next pitch when Casey Wagner blasted a home run over the wall in left. The Bulldogs came to their last at-bat facing an 11-4 deficit.

After hitting the homer in the top of the inning, Wagner was brought in to relieve Sorrells in the bottom of the seventh. Westerfield lined out to Wagner to end the game and Batesville’s season.

“Casey has been doing things for this team all year long,” said Windle. “He is on his game this year.”

Sorrells threw 88 pitches in his six innings on the mound to get the win. He allowed four runs and had seven strikeouts.

Wagner had two hits and four RBIs to go along with his one inning pitched.

Enzinger threw 117 pitches over 6.1 innings. He allowed 11 runs, but only six of them were earned.

The win advanced Franklin County to the second round of the sectional tournament. That opponent turned out to be the Madison Cubs, who beat Lawrenceburg 5-0 in the first round.

“(The Cubs) are well coached and defensively they are very good,” said Windle.