Prep Baseball Report

Cathedral Rolls in Jasper Invitational





Game 1

Jasper controlled the game from the second inning on.  Jasper’s Nick Gobert (2013) pitched a complete game, giving up two hits and striking out eight.  Gobert was consistently 79-82 mph on the day, touching 83 on a few occasions. His arm action was quick and at the plate showed quick hands, looking to be an overall solid baseball player.  Another player that stood out in Game 1 was Devon Traylor (2013) from Jasper. Traylor is quick, takes good routes in the outfield, and controlled the outfield as a center fielder should. 

Jasper 7 Columbus East 0

Game 2

Cathedral handed the ball off to an impressive 6'3 freshman RHP Ashe Russell. Russell works from a 3'4 arm action and is loose with a clean delivery. His fastball was an easy 82-84 mph for six innings. Russell went 6 innings, giving up 6 hits, 4 runs, while striking out 3. 

Cathedral jumped out to a 4-0 lead on Evansville Central. The Irish struck first in the second inning behind an RBI triple off the bat of Luke Cuerton (2013). Cuerton would score on Alex Boos’ (2014) sacrifice fly. The third inning saw Matt Dauby (Virginia Tech) and Nick McCarty (Notre Dame) cross the plate when Ryan Levenhagen (Army) ripped a single pushing the lead to 4-0. 

Evansville Central began to get to the younger Russell in the fourth when he began to fall behind in counts.   Central's SS Lane Willingham (Vincennes 2012) smoked a ball off the fence in right center for an RBI double. Grant Buckley (2014) would later drive Willingham in with a RBI single. Buckley also drove in the game tying run in the 6th with a sacrifice fly to left field. 

In typical Cathedral fashion, they responded in the 7th with two runs of their own. Central struggled to throw strikes and walked 4 straight hitters that ultimately gave the Irish the victory.  

Cathedral 6 Evansville Central 4

Game 3

Key Players: Payton Gray--2-2RBI (Columbus East), Kellen Otto-- 2-2 (Columbus East), Hunter Boggs-- 2-3 2RBI (Columbus East), Austin Elpers-- 3-3 (Evansville Central), Blake Hicks-- 2B 2RBI (Evansville Central)

Evansville Central 7 Columbus East 4

Game 4 (Championship)

In a game that featured, No.5 Cathedral vs. No.10 Jasper, both teams had their aces ready to throw on normal rest. Jasper struck first with a RBI single off the bat of senior Logan Hettinger in the first inning. Cathedral’s RHP Nick McCarty would settle down after the first inning, and would not yield another run the rest of the game. McCarty, a Notre Dame commit, sat 87-89, touching 90 mph with his fastball.  His slider was 76-77 mph, and was almost unhittable for most of the game.

Jasper’s ace, Mark Geisler (2013), matched McCarty early on the scoreboard, but did not have his normal stuff for most of the game. His velocity was down, only touching 86 mph, and his breaking ball was not as sharp as it has been in previous outings. What got Jasper in trouble however, was the inability to throw strikes. In, the first 5 innings Jasper walked or hit six Cathedral hitters, and committed an error. When you give a team like Cathedral an extra 7 base runners it is tough to win. Cathedral took full advantage of the extra bases.  In the fourth, the Irish scored five runs on three hits. The three hits were to lead off the inning off the bats of Levenhagen, Cuerton, and Will Hunker. All three would go on to score on walks or an error. The final blow came in the fifth off of Matt Dauby's bat when he drove a two run single to push the score to 8 -1.

Cathedral 8 Jasper 1