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Tigers blank O'Hara en route to second victory
Behind starting pitcher Derek O'Dell's second dominant performance of the season, the Nevada Tigers crushed the Archbishop O'Hara Celtics 10-0 in a six inning run-rule Monday afternoon at Lyons Stadium.
With the West Central Conference victory, Nevada improves to 2-1 overall and 2-0 in WCC-play.
O'Dell followed up his season-opening 13 strike out masterpiece March 21 against Harrisonville, with a 2-hit complete-game shutout of O' Hara.
"Derek did a great job of pitching ahead in the count today," Tigers head coach Danny Penn said.
O'Dell needed only 69 pitches to notch his second win of the season.
"Derek was getting strike one," Penn said. "When you get ahead in the count you can use your secondary pitches and start moving around the strike zone. If you're constantly falling behind, you have to pretty much live fastball ---- and the batter knows that and they can sit dead-red.
"Getting strike one today allowed Derek to use his full arsenal of pitches."
With runners on second and third and two outs in the top of the second, Nevada third baseman Jacob Johnson saved two runs from scoring with a back-handed snag of a line-drive hit by Michael Menne, ending the Celtics threat.
After committing six errors in a loss last week to Carthage, Penn said he was pleased with his squad's defense against O'Hara.
"I thought our defense was much better today," he said. "Tyler (Ketterman) had three or four nice plays at shortstop and Branden (Harder) had a tough short-hop play he made at second. Along with Jake's play at third, the infield played very well."
Leading off the bottom of the third, Ketterman hammered a single into left field, notching his fifth hit of the young season. After stealing second base, Ketterman was moved over to third courtesy of a Brett Mitchell sacrifice fly to deep center field.
Stepping to the plate next, senior Andrew Heathman rocketed a Blake Stegner offering into right center-field. O' Hara center fielder Brock Hughes badly misplayed the ball, and then compounded the miscue by overthrowing his cut-off man, as Penn waived Heathman home. It was officially scored as a triple plus an error, as Heathman put Nevada on top 2-0.
"Our second time through the order today we saw some good swings," Penn said. "Brett and Andy ---- guys that we're going to ask to hit in the middle of our lineup had been struggling the first two games, but had some quality swings today."
Nevada's 2-out rally continued, as Stegner issued walks to the next three Nevada batters, Trey Pritchett, Johnson and O'Dell, loading the bases for Bryson Leftwich.
It appeared as the inning would come to an end after Leftwich grounded to shortstop Landon Vahle. Vahle however, was unable to field the ball cleanly and was also off-target on his thorw to first base as Pritchett and Johnson scored to put Nevada up 4-0.
Leading off the bottom of the fourth, Ketterman reached on a walk, and then proceeded to swipe second and third base. With 1-out in the inning, Mitchell recorded his first hit of the season, an RBI-double into the left-center field gap, as the Tigers led 5-0. Nevada increased its lead to 6-0 after courtesy- runner Daulton Shepard scored on a wild pitch.
After knocking Stegner out of the game, the Tigers tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the fifth, followed by two in the bottom of the sixth. The final run of the game came on a bases loaded walk, as Nevada cruised to victory.
After playing its first three games at home, the Tigers are now slated to play several road contests, not returning home again until April 12.
"We need to continue to play like we did today," Penn said of the upcoming road games. "We need to come out ready to go defensively. It can't take us three or four inning to get rolling."
Up next
The Tigers square-off today in a varsity-junior varsity doubleheader against Center High School in Kansas City. The first pitch is set for 4 p.m.