Hardin, Greenup shut out Central

By MELINDA ROBINSON - The Independent

LLOYD Sat, May 17 2008

— Greenup County jumped out on visiting Johnson Central early Monday night and Ethan Hardin pitched a four-hit shutout as the Musketeers rolled to an 11-0 win in five innings.
After giving up a leadoff infield single to Central’s Tyler Grimm, Hardin recorded his first of six strikeouts in the game. The Musketeers then turned a double play as Zack Smith caught a fly ball in right and threw to first baseman Eric Craft, catching Grimm off the bag.
In the bottom of the first, Craft led off with a triple and Billy Logan and Zack Reed followed with one-out singles. An infield error allowed two runners to score and the Musketeers drove in two more runs for a 5-0 lead after one inning.
“That helped light the fire after the weekend we had,” Greenup coach Greg Logan said. “After getting no-hit (against DuPont Manual) over the weekend, we were looking for anything positive and I think we found it right there.”
Greenup County added two earned runs in the second and took advantage of more Central errors in the third, helping to score the final four runs.
“When we got down early, we kind of dropped from a long weekend and it just kind of snowballed from there,” Johnson Central coach Shawn Hall said. “When you’re playing a team like Greenup County, which I consider the best in the 16th Region, you can’t give them any breaks.”
The Musketeers dropped two of three games over the weekend, including an extra-inning affair with Tates Creek. They’ve also been working on their small ball, as well as minimizing strikeouts, which seemed to be effective against Central, according to Logan.
“We’ve been teaching that we can’t be swinging for the fences when we’ve got two strikes on us and we’re starting to adjust to that.”
Only one Musketeers struck out and 11 of their 12 hits were singles.
Johnson Central (6-6) had a pair of close games Saturday but were 2-1 over the weekend in its own tournament. The Eagles look to a seeded 57th District game against Lawrence County tonight at 7 p.m.
Despite the mercy-rule loss to the Musketeers, Hall believes his team can benefit from the exposure and use it to be successful in the future.
“We made a tough schedule this year to get our guys some experience against good teams,” he said. “We’ve competed against some good teams so I think it’s going to help us in the postseason this year and beyond.”
For Greenup, Monday’s matchup was a confidence builder as both teams are looking to defend a regional title and a postseason appearance at AppleBee’s Park.
“Even though they may be down this year, they were still an Elite Eight team last year and they couldn’t have graduated everybody,” Logan said of Central. “We definitely didn’t want to take them lightly or anything because we knew they were at the same place we were last year.”
The Musketeers also go into district battle tonight, hosting Russell at 6 p.m. in a non-seeded 63rd District matchup.
“I guarantee Russell’s going to want to beat Greenup County for a little bit of bragging rights,” Logan said. “Hopefully the confidence and momentum for us will carry over to tomorrow night.”

JOHNSON CENT. 000 00 — 0 4 4
GREENUP CO. 524 0x — 11 12 1
Stacy, Turner (3) and Smith; Hardin and Logan, Reed (5). W — Hardin, L — Stacy. 2B: Isaac (J). 3B: Craft (G).