By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

DARKE COUNTY — Here are the scores and stats from the high school baseball games from March 28.

Ansonia 6 (1-2, 1-1) vs Arcanum 2 (1-2, 1-1)

ANSONIA — The Ansonia baseball get their first win of the season in their home opener over WOAC rivals Arcanum.

It was a 1-1 tie heading into the bottom of the sixth inning. Ansonia exploded for five runs to take control of the game. Ansonia head coach Dustin Hecht said they felt like they started to get the offense going in their extra innings lose at Dixie.

They were able to bring that offensive momentum with them to this game.

“We started coming on a little bit against Dixie. We started to see some motion, started to get a little more consistent. We were hoping to bring that into this game. We were putting the bat on the ball early, just right to them,” Hecht said. “Kept swinging and made things happen.”

Ansonia scored first in the bottom of the second off a RBI hit by freshman Kam Ingle. Arcanum didn’t score until the fifth inning when sophomore Ethan Kearney scored on an error.

Ansonia senior Keegen Weiss limited the Arcanum offense on the mound. Arcanum head coach Randy Baker said Weiss is a great pitcher that has given them problems in the past. Weiss was able to keep his young team off balanced for most of the game.

“Had too many strikeouts and didn’t put enough balls in play. We’re a young team, we’ll get it fixed,” Baker said.

Weiss wasn’t able to pitch last season due to injury. He pitched all seven innings in this game and allowed five hits and had 11 strikeouts.

Hecht said Weiss was dearly missed on the mound last season and is great to have him and senior Trevor Hemmerich lead the pitching staff.

“Threw against Minster, had a little bit of trouble. But, he bounced back and is doing what we know he can do. Just got to have that confidence and get back into it. He really showed it today,” Hecht said.

Freshman Lander Shives got the scoring going for Ansonia in the bottom of the sixth with a two-run double. Ingle drew a walk to drive in a run to make it 4-1. Senior Landyn Bowman then doubled to drive in two more runs.

Arcanum is focused on giving their younger players a chance to show their skill on the mound. Baker said starter freshman Lucas Miller pitched well. He pitched five innings and allowed three hits and had six strikeouts.

But with it being this early in the season, Baker wants to not players stay too long on the mound and rotate in some other players.

“Miller got up to his pitch count. We were done with him. Early in the season, we are not going to run pitchers out there and throw a lot of innings. Raised his pitch count up and bring some young guys in to see what we got. We’ll learn from it. We’ll get better,” Baker said.

Sophomore Regan Christ drove in the team’s second run of the game in the seventh inning on a sacrifice groundout.

Both teams have some younger guys stepping up as starters on their respective teams. Baker said he knew it would be an up and down season with the youth on the team. This game provided them with some good lessons to build off of.

For Ansonia, Hecht said the young guys defensively did a good job bouncing back from past mistakes either during the game or from the previous game and competed for all seven innings.

Ansonia will play at Riverside on April 1 for a 5 p.m. first pitch. Arcanum will host St. Henry and Preble Shawnee in back to back games. St. Henry will visit on March 1 followed by Preble Shawnee on March 2. Both games are set for a 5 p.m. first pitch.

Around the county:

Bradford (0-2)

The Railroaders fell at Brookville, 13-3. Bradford scored three runs in the first inning. Brookville could only respond with one run in the bottom of the first. The Blue Devils scored seven runs in the third inning and five runs in the fourth inning to get the win. Senior Hudson Hill and sophomore Colton Gambill both had a RBI. Between four pitchers, they had three strikeouts and walked 10 batters. After a double header at Houston, the Railroaders will head to National Trail on April 2 for a 5 p.m. first pitch.

Franklin Monroe (1-1, 1-0)

The Jets get their first win of the season at Twin Valley South. They were down 1-0 after the third inning. They responded with two runs in the fourth inning and four runs in the fifth. Junior Josh Armstrong had three RBI. Freshman Braden Gilbert drove in a run as well. Junior Chase Stebbins pitched all seven inning and gave up three hits while striking out three batters.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]