HAMILTON, Ohio – Behind a masterful pitching performance from James Scott and an early offensive outburst, the Xenia Scouts handily defeated the Hamilton Joes by a 10-0 final Tuesday night at Foundation Field.
The win advances the Scouts into the semifinals of the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League post-season tournament where they will take on the Southern Ohio copperheads in a best-of-3 series beginning Wednesday night in Xenia.
Scott, who attends The Masters College, hurled a complete-game shutout giving up only four hits. Scott added on seven strikeouts against just two walks to give Xenia its first postseason win in program history
Xenia got to Joes starter Chuck Ghysels in the second inning when the bottom of the Scouts batting order stepped up and got things going.
Brett Kauten and Trey Wimmer each collected singles before Ben Christian laced a ball down the left-field line. Kauten crossed the plate for the first run then Hamilton’s left-fielder Ian Miller misplayed the ball allowing Wimmer to score from first and Christian to go to third.
Christian would round out the scoring in the second when Eddie Young grounded out to second base.
Ghysels, who was named to the All-GLSCL first team on Monday, could not get out of the fourth inning as the first four batters reached base.
Wimmer walked to lead off the inning and was followed by Christian’s single and Young’s walk before Palensky singled up the middle to score Wimmer and Christian, chasing Ghysels in favor of Matt Marksberry.
Marksberry did not favor much better as he tallied just two outs in the six batters he faced.
The big blow in the inning came with one out and the bases loaded when Taylor Kaprive drilled a Marksberry pitch to deep right-center to clear the bases and give the Scouts a 9-0 lead. Kaprive would later score on a Wimmer double.
Xenia would collect a total of 13 hits on the night with every batter tallying at least one each.
Meanwhile, Scott was cruising along as he hurled five perfect, 1-2-3 innings on the hill as he collected the first complete game by any Scouts hurler this summer. The shutout was the fourth for the Xenia pitching staff and the first against any team other than the Lexington Hustlers.
Xenia will now look to Wednesday’s series opener against the Copperheads, who received a first-round bye after winning the South Division regular-season crown.
Game 1 of the best-of-3 series will be at Grady’s Field with a first pitch of 7 p.m. Game 2 will be at Bob Wren Stadium in Athens, Ohio, on Thursday and the “if” game will also be at Southern Ohio on Friday.
In other GLSCL postseason action, the Licking County Settlers drubbed the Cincinnati Steam, 9-2, to advance to the semifinals to take on the Lima Locos. First game in the series will be at Licking County with the subsequent games at Lima.
(Photo courtesy of Steve Frazier.)
