Prep baseball: Rockets pick up win at Cardinal
Jun. 19—ELDON — Jared McCrea proved to be pretty effective when he threw the ball across home plate.
It was the throws he made to first base, however, that really stymied the Cardinal Comets on Friday night.
McCrea tossed a complete-game three-hit shutout that featured eight strikeouts, leading the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont baseball team to a 2-0, avenging a Class 2A district championship loss from last summer. EBF (14-4) was able to scratch across a run in the fourth on a wild pitch by Dawson Lewis, scoring Caleb Noble, and an error in the sixth inning that allowed Ethan Davis to score an insurance run for the Rockets.
Cardinal (7-6) had their own chances to put runs on the board as three walks, three errors and two hit batters allowed the Comets to put 10 runners on base throughout the contest. Four of those runners, however, were picked off first base by McCrea in four different innings.
"They (Cardinal players) kept on saying to the guys at first base from their dugout to stay close, so I just kept changing up my move and confuse them," McCrea said. "It got them off balance, then they would start acting like they going before going back to first. I just got their timing down and threw it over there."
McCrea picked off Blaine Bryant twice, each time forcing the Cardinal junior catcher into a rundown. Bryant was tagged out after two-out single in the first and after reaching on an error to open the fourth preventing the Comets from answering back after a two-out rally in the top of the inning gave EBF a 1-0 lead.
"He just reads the runner so well. He just has a feel for when they're going to get a little more aggressive and lulls them to sleep the same way you set up pitches," EBF head baseball coach Thomas Hallgren said. "He just has a feel for it. I haven't taught him a thing."
McCrea credits Trevor Swartz, a former EBF standout and current baseball coach, for teaching him the mechanics of a good pickoff move during his eighth-grade season. For McCrea, there's one golden rule to follow in being effective catching runners off first.
"Never keep it the same," McCrea said of his move to first. "Always change it."
Lewis took the loss for Cardinal despite a solid six innings on the mound, allowing just four hits and two runs on three walks with seven strikeouts. Cardinal failed to bring home the first run in the third, leaving Kaleb Figeroua stranded at third and left the tying run at second in the fifth.
Cardinal had two chances to tie the game with a home run in the seventh. After walking Chance Randolph with one out, McCrea finished the night off by striking out Tatem Telfer and Figueroa.
"McCrea is a great pitcher. We just didn't make the adjustment to his move to first base," Cardinal baseball coach Chris Becker said. "We got caught leaning. We were trying to get something going. That just happened at the wrong time. You just have to tip your hat to EBF and Jared, who pitched phenomenally."
EBF hosts Albia in a South Central Conference doubleheader while Cardinal heads to Keosauqua to face Van Buren County at the Ferguson Complex in a Southeast Iowa Superconference south division clash on Monday.
— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.
