BASEBALL

The HU baseball team wrapped up the regular season series sweep over Marian Monday afternoon at Logansport High School by outlasting their visitors 14-13 in a game that stretched to ten frames. The win bumps Huntington to 5-7 on the year, 3-0 in league play, while the Knights drop to 10-9 overall, 0-3 in CL action.

The Foresters found themselves down 4-1 right off the bat and played catch up the rest of the way. While the hosts knotted things up twice, once in the third and then again in the ninth, never did they claim a lead until the tenth. While things looked bleak for Huntington several times, they never relented in their pursuit of touching home.

Down 12-5 midway through the fifth was one of those moments for Huntington. Alex McCutcheon led off the bottom of the frame with a triple to give new life to his team. RBI hits by Satchell Wilson and Max Moser and a sac fly by Langston Ginder cut into the lead by three. HU found a way to plate three more runs in the sixth to close the gap to 12-11.

Just when it looked like momentum had shifted in favor of Frame and company, Caleb Meyers launched his second long ball of the afternoon in the eighth to double Marian’s lead to a pair of runs. Skip to the bottom of the ninth where the Foresters, facing despair, managed to get the job done in the most unconventional of ways.

While HU went hitless in the ninth, they pieced together two walks, two wild pitches and getting plunked three times to score twice for a 13-13 stalemate to extend the game by an inning where Jarret Gray came up with the game-winning play. Ian McCutcheon set the stage with a lead-off single. After stealing second and advancing to third on a wild pitch, the sophomore centerfielder motored home on Gray’s RBI walk-off grounder.

It was undoubtably a team effort as evidenced by nine different Foresters logging at least one RBI, but Alex McCutcheon was ferocious at the plate. The pitcher-turned-heavy hitter was a double shy of hitting for the cycle with his three-run bomb over the right field fence in the third turning the heads of everyone at Jim Turner Field. He was all about threes as that was how many hits, RBI and runs he finished with.

Ian McCutcheon and Wilson each posted a pair of base pokes as the only other Foresters to collect multiple hits.

Four pitchers spent time on the mound for Huntington with Caleb Landrum tossing the last two frames where he gave up just one hit and two walks while striking out one to pick up the win. HU sifted through seven Knight pitchers, three of which took a turn on the bump during that unsuspecting ninth, with Dylan Sprong eventually taking the loss.

Huntington hits the road on Friday for a single nine with Goshen with a doubleheader on Saturday to follow.