MOUNT VERNON – The season came to an abrupt end for the young Mount Vernon baseball team on Wednesday, May 20, with a disappointing 16-1 five-inning loss at the hands of visiting Gahanna Lincoln in a Division I second-round game at Yellow Jacket Field.
The 14th-seeded Jackets were down 3-0 after the third inning before the roof fell in.
In the fourth, 21st-seeded Gahanna marched 11 batters to the plate. Leading 10-0, the Lions batted around in the fifth inning as well, sending 12 more to the plate. The two-inning, 13-run barrage came on nine hits and two walks, along with seven steals and a balk. Three Jacket errors accounted for three unearned runs in the melee.
In total, the Lions (13-13) racked up 13 hits in the game, while Mount Vernon managed just three hits. Freshman Johnny Askew smashed a triple to lead off the first for the Jackets (14-11) but was stranded at third.
Pitcher Zach Marzetz went five innings and allowed five hits and no walks with three strikeouts. After Askew’s hit, he set down 13 of the next 15 Mount Vernon batters. Marzetz also went 2-for-4 plus a walk at the plate.
Teammate Cameron Lewis singled, doubled and reached on an error; and Garrett Helsel singled, doubled and drew a walk in the game.
Marzetz yielded only a fifth-inning single to Mount Vernon’s Trace Adkins and an RBI base hit to Ethan Laslo, who drove in Adkins with the Jackets’ only run. Laslo, a senior, was 1-for-2 in the game, also reaching base when he was hit by a Marzetz pitch in the fourth inning.
For Laslo and the other five Jackets seniors, it’s a time to reflect.
“I am proud of my time here,” Laslo said. “Through the years, my coaches and my other teammates who helped me and pushed me — made me the man I am right now. That’s a lot to be thankful for.”
Jackets senior first baseman Carter Carpenter was hitless in the game, but he isn’t walking away empty-handed.
“I am just thankful for the coaches and baseball in general,” he said. “All high school sports helped me become who I am. It teaches you lessons that you wouldn’t think, looking outside the game. I will be using those lessons later in life. All the coaches I had in Mount Vernon are all great people and really care about the kids.”
For those who will return next season, there is nothing to do but move forward.
“We have great kids, and it will be my job to take those kids and get them over this hump,” Mount Vernon coach Nate Hunt said. “This is a tough one to swallow. Besides us not playing well, Gahanna hit the ball well. The one thing we had to fight this year was that we had a lot of guys without experience. That’s what caught up to us today. I told our guys that it takes an elite group to win your last high school baseball game, and that’s our goal.”
The Lions travel to fourth-seeded Westerville South in the district semifinal round on Monday, May 24.
