LINDEN — Jarrod Kirsch has not only been one of the pitchers in the Sagamore Conference this season, he’s been one of the best in the entire state. In yet another key Sagamore Conference game against a good hitting Lebanon team, the Charger junior continued his phenomenal season by striking out 13 Tigers and allowing just a single earned run in a complete game, 5-1 North Montgomery win.
The win for the Chargers improves their SAC record to 7-1 on the season and 11-6 overall. Thanks to Frankfort defeating Tri-West, the Chargers are now tied atop the SAC standing with the Bruins.
“You just have to sit back and marvel in what he’s been able to do this entire season,” Charger coach Matt Voorhees said of his ace. “More than that he’s a great teammate and a great kid. When you have players like him, you can do some pretty special things. The best part of him is his personality is contagious. Credit Lebanon as they had some hard hit balls against him but he just continued to stay locked in with every single pitch he throws.”
The Chargers got all five of their runs early on with four coming in the second inning. After Corbin Meadows singled to begin the frame, Cade Cole laid down a sac bunt to advance him to second base and advanced to third on wild pitch. Roman Utterback flew out as the Chargers needed to something to continue the inning. They got it when Brookes Walters reached on a dropped third strike which scored Meadows. What followed was a walk by Austin Sulc then two straight singles from Kirsch and Ross Dyson to make it 3-0. Kirsch then added the fourth Charger run on another Tiger wild pitch.
“To open that can a little bit against a great pitcher like (Corbin) Wells was important for us,” Voorhees added. “Our philosophy is we break it down to each and every pitch. It doesn’t matter how many outs there are in the inning. If our guys see a pitch even that might be questionable call, we don’t want to leave it up to the umpire and they know to swing. We had some 3-2 counts that were just some very good at bats by some of our guys tonight.”
Kirsch with 13 strikeouts on the mound as of Tuesday evening is now up to 81 on the season which gives him the state lead in that category.
Lebanon coach Rich Cosgrary noted how while his team was able to get some hits off of Kirsch, they didn’t string enough together. He also added how he wasn’t pleased with how his defense played.
“Our deficiency this year has been on the defensive side of things,” he said. “Tonight that’s what allowed North to have some extra opportunities early. When you’re going up against a good pitcher in Kirsch, you have to take care of business on that side of things so offensively you can take the small opportunities when they are there.”
Meadows led the way offensively for the Chargers with two hits in the win as did Brookes Walters. Kirsch and Dyson each had a hit each.
For the Tigers who fall to 6-9 (3-5 SAC) with the loss they were led by Joel Acton who went a perfect 3-3 with three singles. Bryce Nelson, Cayman Huntsman, Corbin Wells, and Ethan Coffman all had a single hit.
“Tomorrow is a new opportunity for us when they travel to our place,” Cosgray added. “That’s what is great about baseball. The bottom line is we have to re-group overnight and we have seven seniors on this team that I count on. We have do it as a complete team.”
The Chargers and Tigers will battle it out yet again on Wednesday back at Lebanon with first pitch scheduled for 6 pm.
