Big fifth inning lifts Cardinal Newman baseball past Hammond
At this stage of the playoff season, it usually only takes one big moment to provide a spark.
That happened Tuesday night when defending SCISA Class 3A state champion Cardinal Newman had their backs against the wall, down 1-0 in the best-of-three semifinal series against Hammond.
Tillman Geddings homered to leadoff the fifth inning and Bradley Turner capped his huge night with a two-strike, two-out single as part of a five-run outburst to propel the Cardinals to a 7-1 win. The deciding third game will be played at 6 p.m. Thursday night at Cardinal Newman.
“It’s a common cliché but we preach toughness with two strikes,” CN coach Charles Assey Jr. said. “We talk it and try to live it. There were two times that inning where put ground balls in play and our runners kept coming so we had four runners score off two balls on the infield.”
Turner was the offensive catalyst, finishing 3-for-3 with three RBIs, including the two key ones in the five-run outburst in the fifth inning.
It was tied at one when Turner drove in his first run in the fourth inning. Owen Pickel singled and stole second and score when Turner’s double went over the right fielder’s head.
Geddings led off the next inning with a home run just over the left field wall. Hammond pitcher Wilson McCall recovered from that blow by retiring the next two batters but ran into trouble with two outs.
Jake Rehling walked, Pickel singled and Jonathan Hafner walked to load the bases. Turner ran the count to full before delivering a two-run infield single to push the lead to 5-1. Quinn O’Conner followed with a ground ball to short that was mishandled, allowing two more runners to score.
“I knew that was a big inning for us,” Turner said. “We needed to push some more runs to increase the lead. I feel comfortable in 3-2 counts and tried to drive it back up the middle to get us two RBIs. I felt confident about things after that with Myles (Hedgecock) on the mound.”
That was more than enough support for Hedgecock. He scattered six hits over seven innings with two strikeouts, no walks and one hit batter as he allowed one earned run.
“We’ve line up and played 29 games and we’ve won 25 of them,” Assey said. “It’s been mainly pitching and defense and we figure out how to scratch some runs out.”
Hammond coach Chris Braciszewski thought things just spiraled away after Geddings home run.
“Geddings home run kind of lit a fire under them,” he said. “It was back and forth, waiting to see who would get that big hit and when he gets that big home run, we got sort of rattled.”
Cardinal Newman (25-4) scored a run in the first. Geddings was hit by a pitch and came around to score on Parker Hocutt’s RBI single.
Hammond (15-10) tied it in the second with three base hits. Brig Brannon and Jack Weston opened the frames with singles before Harris Jackson delivered an RBI single.
WP: Myles Hedgecock. LP: Wilson McCall. Hitters: H – Brig Brannon 2-3. CN – Tillman Geddings 2-3, HR; Parker Hocutt 2-3; Owen Pickel 2-3; Bradley Turner 3-3, 2B, 3 RBI.
This story was originally published May 7, 2019 at 9:12 PM.