Lancers bow out of sectional with loss to Lutheran

MORRISTOWN

The walk from the home dugout to the pitcher’s mound is one Edinburgh baseball coach Dennis Smith got used to Saturday morning.

Lancer pitchers struggled to find the strike zone against Indianapolis Lutheran, which proved a swift end to their season. Edinburgh lost, 16-1, in a semifinal of the Class A sectional at Morristown.

In a game shortened to five innings due to the 10-run rule, the Lancers nonetheless walked 15 Saints batters. Edinburgh closed the season with a 7-14 record after what was the final game for seniors Bryce Burton, Coltan Henderson and Evan Giles.

Edinburgh trailed only 2-1 through three innings, but Lutheran sent 13 batters to the plate in the top of the fourth, eight of whom were walked en route to nine runs that put the game away.

“I’m proud of these guys. We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores out there, and we end up with seven wins,” Smith said. “To be honest, I don’t think anybody expected us to be here on Saturday.

“Our seniors have been amazing. Coltan Henderson, what a great kid. He’s No. 2 in his class (academically) and he’s meant a lot to Edinburgh, the school and the community. Bryce the same way. A very hard-nosed kid. Plays as hard as he can all of the time. And then you have Giles, a kid who has done everything he can to get better.”

Giles got the start on the hill for the Lancers and walked the first two batters on eight consecutive pitches. Edinburgh got out of the inning without the Saints scoring any runs, though, and even took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the inning when Burton scored on Ethan Armel’s grounder after blasting a one-out double and stealing third to put himself in scoring position.

Giles, who also drilled a double to the center field fence in the first, lasted three innings as the team’s pitcher, allowing two hits and walking six before being replaced by Armel and then sophomore Noah Detling.

Indianapolis Lutheran (9-11), which advanced to today’s championship game against eighth-ranked Southwestern (Shelbyville), finished with seven hits. Edinburgh totaled four, including Henderson’s single in his second at-bat and a Detling triple in the second inning.

Saints coach Dick Alter watched Edinburgh’s 3-0 first-round victory over Greenwood Christian. He figured the semifinal would contain a similar competitiveness.

“We didn’t get to play them this season, but the boy who started pitching (Giles) has been effective for us in the past,” Alter said. “They played really well against Greenwood Christian, so we knew if they played that same way with energy and excitement that they could be tough to beat.”