Published: July 17, 2008 12:06 am      

BASEBALL: Howard County dominates

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WALTON — Howard County used outstanding pitching and a balanced offensive attack to continue its dominance of the Pharos-Tribune/Kokomo Tribune All-Star Baseball Game here Wednesday night.

Howard County whipped Loganland 14-4 in a full nine innings on the Lewis Cass diamond to improve to 3-0-1 in the short history of the event.

James Reed cracked a two-run single in the top of the first inning to put Howard County in the lead. From there, Howard County took advantage of Loganland errors to stretch its advantage to 5-0 after three innings and 8-0 after four innings.

“We jumped on them there at the beginning and didn’t really ease off the gas any,” Howard County player Alex Ridlen said. “It was nice to see us put up 14 runs and take care of business.”

Ridlen picked up Howard County MVP honors. The Northwestern catcher went 3-for-4 at the plate, drove in three runs and scored two runs.

“I felt pretty good,” he said. “I haven’t done a lot this summer as far as baseball goes, so it was a matter of coming out here and trying to figure out if I’m going to be in the same shape or what’s going happen. It felt good. I came out and got a hit in the first inning, so it started well and snowballed from there.”

Howard County received contributions up and down its 15-player batting order and finished with 16 hits. Reed went 2-for-3 and drove in three runs, Dustin Schacht and Nick Griggs each went 2-for-4, leadoff hitter Kirk Beachy went 1-for-2 and scored three runs and Bryce Robinson, Jimmy Corcoran, Kevin Jewell, Seth Vautaw, Matt Reida and Garrett Spall each chipped in a hit.

“We can hurt you at the top or the bottom, it didn’t make any difference,” Howard County skipper Ty Calloway, of Western, said of the 15-player batting order. “It’s a good rule. Everyone stays in the game and we rotated people [in the field] all night. They all got the same amount of playing time. You just try to let them showcase their skills.”

Howard County was just as impressive on the mound. Brad Rist, Spall, Robinson, Colton Hopwood, Michael Moreno and Nolan Sanburn combined on a three-hitter and allowed no earned runs. They racked up 14 strikeouts and issued just one walk.

Rist, Spall and Robinson each pitched two innings and Hopwood, Moreno and Sanburn followed with an inning of work apiece.

“I told them they were going to throw [a maximum of] two innings apiece, and to go out there and throw strikes and let the defense do the job,” Calloway said. “It’s pretty nice to have quality kids. You’re stomach is not rolling at all.”

Up 2-0, Howard County broke the game open over the third and fourth innings. Loganland had chances to escape both innings unharmed, but two-out errors kept the innings alive and led to Howard County scoring six unearned runs. Ridlen had a two-run single in the third and Griggs had an RBI single in the fourth.

Howard County tacked on three runs in the sixth for a 9-1 lead. Corcoran and Reed had run-scoring singles and Vautaw was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to score the third run.

In the eighth, Ridlen drove in a run with a groundout. And in the ninth, Matt Reida had an RBI infield single and Jewell scored on a wild pitch.

For Ridlen and eight other Howard County players, the All-Star Game marked the last time representing their high schools. They kept Howard County undefeated in the All-Star Game.

“It’s definitely nice,” said Ridlen, an Indiana Wesleyan recruit. “It will be exciting to come back and see if we can keep this going.”