Steady Armitage leads Spartans to split with Washburn Rural
By Michael Ashford
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Emporia High baseball coach Mike Strickland has come to expect games like this out of Cole Armitage.
In Emporia’s season opener against Washburn Rural at Trusler Sports Complex on Monday, Armitage was impressive on the mound for the Spartans in the first game of the doubleheader, as the senior struck out nine, walked none and surrendered just three runs in a complete-game effort to lead the Spartans past the Junior Blues, 6-3.
But Strickland has seen enough of Armitage over the years to not be surprised at such an outing anymore.
“Cole pitched a great game,” Strickland said. “When Cole comes out, you kind of know what to expect out of him. He did a great job tonight of throwing up in the strike zone, and defensively behind him, we played pretty well.”
EHS dropped the second game, 11-8.
Armitage began Game One by recording four strikeouts in the first three innings while retiring nine of the first 13 batters he faced.
“I kept the ball low and got a lot of ground balls and pop flies and just let my defense work behind me,” Armitage said.
He fell into a funk in the fourth and fifth innings when he surrendered all three of Rural’s runs, including a solo home run to Zach Nuss in the fourth.
But he quickly recovered. After Rural’s Blaine Matthews scored to put Rural ahead 3-2 in the fifth, Armitage allowed just two hits the rest of the way.
“Toward the last few innings, I kind of got into a groove,” he said, “and I just kept going with what was working.”
Meanwhile, a Jared Johnson solo homer in the bottom of the fourth tied the game at 2 — “After I heard it go out, I was excited, for sure,” Johnson said — and then the Spartans took advantage of two crucial Rural errors in the sixth to take control of the game.
After Seth Torres singled and Armitage walked to start the sixth, Johnson smacked a fly ball to right that was dropped by Washburn Rural’s Matt Fitzgerald. That loaded the bases, and after Taylor Clark popped out to first, Harrison Stone safely reached base when the shortstop bobbled a well-hit grounder, which allowed Torres to score. The next batter, Taylor Anderson, zipped a two-RBI single to right that gave Emporia a 5-3 lead, and Stone later scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 6-3.
“I liked that we keep battling,” Strickland said. “There were times tonight where we got down, and a lot of teams might have given up. We just keep battling. That’s what I really like about this team. They didn’t quit, they didn’t give up, they kept battling.”
In the second game, the Rural batters roughed up the EHS pitchers in the first three innings, as the Junior Blues scored five runs in the first and four more in the third on seven total hits. Emporia starter Jared Krause left the game after giving up consecutive base hits to begin the third, but his relief, Josh Maguire didn’t fare much better, as he promptly gave up two hits and hit one batter as Rural extended its lead to 9-3.
Robert Keisler finally offered some stability when he relieved Maguire, as he finished out the game by allowing just two runs on four hits.
“Robert did a good job on the mound for us,” Strickland said, “and he’s a kid that’s going to have to step up for us on the mound. We’re going to have to use a lot of guys on the mound.”
Emporia (1-1, 1-1) continued to show the same fight it had shown in the first game, as the Spartans scored three in their half of the third to pull to within three at 9-6. EHS plated another run in the fourth when back-to-back doubles by Armitage and Johnson scored Armitage to make it 9-7, and again in the sixth when a bases-loaded walk to Stone allowed Krause to score.
However, Rural scored singles runs in the sixth and seventh innings to keep Emporia at bay, and after having the bases loaded in the sixth and having two on in the seventh, the Spartans could only muster Krause’s one run, and the game ended on back-to-back strikeouts by Keisler and Armitage.
In all, the Spartans stranded a total of 11 baserunners in Game Two.
“We leave too many baserunners on the field,” Strickland said. “We’re not a team that can leave seven, eight, nine, 10 guys on base and win ballgames. We’re going to have to score and play better defense. That’s the biggest thing for us right now. We’ve got to hit more base hits.”
Monday at Trusler Sports Complex
Game One
EHS 6, Washburn Rural 3
Washburn Rural 000 210 0 — 3 8 2
Emporia 100 104 X — 6 4 3
Breeding and McAlister (6); and Schrag. Armitage and Clark. W — Armitage (1-0). L — McAlister. 2B — WR: Schrag, DesJardins. HR — WR: Nuss. Emporia: Johnson.
Game Two
Wasburn Rural 11, EHS 8
Washburn Rural 504 001 1 — 11 11 1 Emporia 303 101 0 — 8 10 5
Carver, Basom (4) and Nuss (7); and Schrag. Krause, Maguire (3) and Keisler (3); and Clark. W — Carver. L — Krause. 2B — WR: Rinehart. Emporia: Armitage, Johnson. 3B — Emporia: Ast. HR — Emporia: Keisler.