Baseball: Canal Winchester Indians excelling behind stingy pitching, defense

One common thread throughout most of April for the Canal Winchester baseball team as it built a lead in the OCC-Capital Division race was a stingy defense and pitching staff.

In an eight-game stretch from April 8-29, the Indians gave up an average of 1.9 runs per game and scored at least eight in half of those. The result was a 12-game winning streak, 13-3 overall record and 10-0 mark in the league before playing Westerville North on May 5, although the team’s first OCC-Capital championship since 2017 still depended on their fortunes in three more scheduled games through May 11.

“We felt like our guys were very talented ... but they have done an incredible job with the small things, the execution,” coach Drew Dosch said. “The way we’re playing the game has been a lot better. They’re playing hard, coming together and playing for each other. Stuff like that really matters at the high school level.

“We have won games in every single way. You won’t have everything every single night. To be able to scratch out wins in multiple ways is very important.”

Even in its few slugfests, Canal Winchester has come out ahead. Before May 5, the highest-scoring games in terms of total runs for both teams resulted in Indians wins: 15-12 at Hartley on April 7 and 8-7 at Westerville South on May 2 to stay ahead of Westerville North by a game in the league.

Joey Helms, Ethan Martin and Jack Sprague have anchored the pitching staff, but senior John Romig got the win April 29 in a 10-4 victory over South. The Fairmont State recruit went the first three innings, scattering three hits while striking out three and walking two.

“He stepped into a role that going into the year, maybe he would have said and we would have said that we didn’t know if he’d start any games on the mound,” Dosch said. “He went out and he just competes for you. That can light a fire under a team more than anything. He has given us huge quality innings.”

Sprague threw a complete game May 4 at Delaware, allowing four hits and striking out two in a 4-3 win.

•Five wins in an eight-game stretch had Pickerington Central coach Colin Wilson encouraged entering a May 6 game against Groveport, but part of that came simply from playing on a consistent basis.

The Tigers lost three games in a row after a 3-0 start during early April, when a handful of games were postponed or canceled because of bad weather and Central ultimately played only three games in 18 days.

“It’s tough to play a day, then go into a gym for two or three and back to the field,” Wilson said. “Now that we’re back out on the field every single day, we’re starting to really find our groove defensively, at the plate and on the mound.”

Central was 9-6 overall and 6-6 in the OCC-Buckeye before May 5, four games behind first-place Lancaster.

“We have a team full of guys who step up when their time comes,” Wilson said, citing a pitching staff led by Michael Cibulskas, Max Coffman, Nathan Powers, Jacob Soha and Trevor Woodyard and an array of cluich hitters.

Soha, a sophomore, was 3-for-4 with a double April 29 in a 14-8 win against Reynoldsburg and two days earlier earned a complete-game win against the Raiders, striking out five in a 7-3 victory.

•Pickerington North has thrived on production up and down its lineup all season, and the Panthers hoped for the same thing as they tried to overcome a few late-season struggles and prepare for the Division I district tournament.

Kyle Koehler’s .457 average and 21 hits through 16 games both were team highs for North, which was 11-6 overall and 7-4 in the OCC-Ohio before playing New Albany on May 5. Riley Jenkins was batting .389 with seven hits in limited time, Troy Cruse had a .318 average with 14 hits and Ethan Yurko was batting .295 with 13 hits, four home runs and team-best 19 RBI.

Yurko had two two-homer games before May 4, on April 13 against Westland and again 10 days later against Lancaster.

Koehler also had four home runs, and Eli Coppess, Adam Sadler and Kirby Shaffery had one each.

North rebounded from a three-game losing streak in late April with league wins over Westerville Central (4-3 on May 3) and Westland (12-2 on May 4).

dpurpura@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekDave

This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Baseball: Canal Winchester excelling behind stingy pitching, defense