Tri-County’s Schneider, errors lead to Caston’s season-ending loss

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Carson Harness

FULTON — The precocious Caston baseball team won 20 games, making it one of the winningest seasons Blake Mollenkopf has had in his 20 years as coach.

Having said that, the Class 1A, Sectional 50 final against Tri-County at Caston Monday might have indicated that the Comets, who have four freshman and three sophomore starters, are still working at meeting the challenge of a big game.

Grayson Schneider pitched a one-hitter with 16 strikeouts, and Tyler Burns had a pair of RBI singles as Tri-County shut out Caston 4-0.

Tri-County improved to 16-6 and won their first sectional title since 2011. They will play Kouts in a regional at a site to be determined by the IHSAA Wednesday morning.

Carson Harness pitched a three-hitter with three walks and 10 strikeouts for Caston, who finished 20-8. Harness threw 124 pitches, the maximum allowed in a game per IHSAA pitch count rules.

All four runs Harness allowed were unearned thanks to five Caston errors.

Eli Holloway sailed a double over center fielder Vance Tyler’s head two batters into the game for what turned out to be Caston’s lone hit. Two batters later, Noah Herd walked.

Schneider, a 6-3 lefty who is an Indiana Wesleyan recruit, struck out Harness looking to escape any damage.

The only time Caston’s leadoff hitter reached base came when Holloway walked to start the sixth. Caston trailed 2-0 at the time, and the next two hitters due were Gavin Mollenkopf and Noah Herd. Gavin Mollenkopf and Herd are Caston’s top two RBI men with 27 and 29, respectively.

But Schneider got Gavin Mollenkopf, the only hitter in Caston’s lineup not to strike out, to ground into a 4-6-3 double play and then struck out Herd, whom he had walked in his previous two plate trips.

Schneider then completed his masterpiece by getting Harness on a fly to left and striking out Parker Zimpleman and Tucker Woolever looking in the seventh.

Ten of Schneider’s 16 strikeouts were called third strikes.

Coach Mollenkopf said afterwards the strike zone was “a pitcher’s zone” but that it went for both Schneider and Harness.

“Multiple pitches that he throws for strikes,” coach Mollenkopf said of Schneider’s assortment. “You know you’ve got to gear up for his fastball, so he’s very effective. I thought we had a great approach early. We put the ball in play hard. He’s tough. … He’s around the zone with multiple pitches. He was throwing strikes. He was working with that umpire. You know, they got in a groove, and he can get rolling. He’s a nice pitcher.”

Schneider also pitched a two-hitter with 13 strikeouts in an 8-1 quarterfinal over North Newton Wednesday. He is 8-0 with a 0.54 ERA on the season with 120 strikeouts in 52 ⅓ innings.

“Wednesday, I thought he struggled a little bit in finding his location on his off-speed stuff,” Tri-County coach Jeff LeBeau said. “Tonight, I thought he had his whole arsenal on him, and when he has that, he’s very tough to hit. He’s had an extremely good career and a phenomenal senior year.”

Harness got the first two batters out in the second, but Drew Foster’s fly to right was misjudged and then dropped for an error. Foster stole second and then scored when Noah Dahlenburg’s grounder to second was kicked for an error.

Harness responded by retiring seven of the next eight batters, but in the fifth, Dahlenburg reached on an error when his grounder to short was mishandled. Ian Houser’s sacrifice bunt moved Dahlenburg to second, and Burns then singled up the middle to score Dahlenburg.

Harness worked around a leadoff walk to Noah Pratt in the sixth, but after Schneider did likewise in the bottom half, Tri-County preyed on two more Caston miscues in the seventh.

Dahlenburg reached on an error for the third time in as many at-bats and advanced again on Houser’s bunt.

Again, Burns singled to center to drive in a run, and he went to second when the throw to try and get Dahlenburg was late. Burns would later steal third and get up and score when the throw to try and get him was wild for an error.

“It’s just tough,” coach Mollenkopf said. “There were some plays that we typically make (that) we didn’t. They did a great job of taking advantage and having that key hit and bunting guys up. … (Five) errors, and they were key. You don’t ever want to go away from that, but at the same time, we’ve got to hit the ball better. We’ve got to clean up on defense, but I do agree that Carson was a bulldog the whole tournament. He really threw well and competed. I’m glad I get him a couple more years.”

Harness also impressed LeBeau.

“He’s a great pitcher, only a sophomore, I believe,” LeBeau said. “He’s got a very bright future ahead of him. He’s got kind of a unique release where he’s right over the top, and that’s one of the things we talked to our guys about is we’ve never seen anybody like him with that arm angle before, so he did a nice job of keeping us off-balance early on. To my guys’ credit, they settled in and had some quality at-bats.”

Caston’s season included a doubleheader sweep of Sectional 51 champion Triton and a win over Sectional 55 champion Northfield. They also swept rival Pioneer and avenged a regular season loss to West Central in the sectional quarterfinals.

But they also lost to North Miami 12-3 at home May 16 in a game that cost them their last chance at winning the Hoosier North.

“Yeah, I think more mentally than physically,” coach Mollenkopf said when asked if inexperience was a factor. “But one thing you have to experience. … We played North Miami here for a conference championship, and I think the moment… was a little bit big for our guys. We hadn’t experienced that. And tonight we were better. It wasn’t perfect, but they were better at it.

“This is a group that is going to stay hungry. It hurts a lot of them. Just seeing them down there, they were hurting pretty bad tonight. Which as a coach, that’s great to see because it means they care. When you care about something and it gets taken away, it does feel awful, and it hurts. They’ll be back. I don’t want to say we’ve exceeded expectations, but to end 20-8, there’s a lot of baseball to be played by these guys yet. A lot of key guys back.”

Herd, right fielder Lane Halterman and reserves Ryder Craig and Kameron Clingler are the four graduating seniors.

Tri-County 4, Caston 0

Tri-County 010 010 2 – 4 3 0

Caston 000 000 0 – 0 1 5

WP – Grayson Schneider (7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 16 K)

LP – Carson Harness (7 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 10 K)

2B – Eli Holloway (CAS)