April 20, 2023
The Knights went head-to-head with the West Clermont Wolves on Wednesday for first place in the ECC. With seeding being important for the playoffs, whoever wins this game will get a jumpstart to holding a higher seeding. King’s pitcher, Jake Murphy, knows what it takes to beat the Wolves.
“So this team that we’re playing against is a really good offensive team, I think two of their guys had like three home runs over the year,” said Murphy. “So a lot of this game is going to come down to the defense and the small stuff.”
The game started off with an offensive streak by the Wolves, with West Clermont having a 3-0 lead by the bottom of the 2nd inning. The Knights were able to tie the game at the end of the third inning though, with the score being 4-4. The rest of the game would be very slow paced stretching into extra innings, with both teams only scoring one more run before the game ended up getting suspended due to darkness at the top of the twelfth inning. High school regulation games typically finish in 7 innings.
Austin Sanders weighed in on how the Knights brought the game back into a tie during the third inning.
“The momentum shift definitely came from an error in the bottom of the third made by West Clermont, ” said Sanders. We are very good at taking advantage of our opponents’ mistakes and that error was definitely a rally starter.”
The game resumes at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. The Knights are hoping to finish off the Wolves in one final inning.
“It’s definitely tough playing a team like West Clermont in extra innings, ” said Sanders. “They are a very well-rounded team with a ton of talent but we just have faith in our guys to get it done.”
**Update: After 2 additional innings today, Thursday, April 20, the Knights win 6-5 with Austin Fout’s walk-off double to score Hayden Petry.
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