Baseball: Freel, Bloomington North sneak past Martinsville in sectional opener

How much confidence does Bloomington North baseball coach Richard Hurt have in Luke Freel?

Hurt turned to the sophomore pitcher in the biggest moment on Wednesday's home sectional game against Martinsville: two-outs, bases loaded and a 2-0 lead to protect when he pulled starter Cole Grupenhoff. Freel, in his first varsity playoff game, walked in a run, then saw the umpires not call an apparent tag for out after a ground ball that would have ended the inning.

"Not ideal but I knew I had to get in there and throw strikes," Freel said. "I realized I can do this. This is my game now."

Instead of panicking, he reset and went on to retire the next seven batters, long enough for the Cougars to scrape together a few more runs to claim an odd 5-2 win.

"Cole had been very, very steady," Hurt said. "He through well and Luke has done an outstanding job for us. He's come in thrown strikes, he's going to be a very good pitcher."

Freel had six strikeouts in 3⅓ innings work, giving up just one hit.

"He's been great this entire second half of the season," senior outfielder Graham Freund said. "We've used him really well."

Freel and his slider gave up a hit in the seventh, but also struck out the side, the last pitch curling over the inside part of the plate as Martinsville's Jaxton Proctor watched helplessly.

"I love my slider," Freel said. "It's my best pitch. If I could throw it all game I would. I love it when people get frozen up by it."

North ends sectional losing streak

Amazingly, it's North's first playoff win since 2015 against East Central.

"It's big in several ways because we've had such a tough season," Hurt said. "Things haven't worked out really well for us. A sigh of relief and it's really nice to get a win in the sectional and move on. Tough road ahead of us but it's nice to be playing on Monday."

It pits the Cougars (8-15) against No. 3 Mooresville (26-3) in the semifinals on Memorial Day at 10 a.m., with Bloomington South and No. 1 Center Grove to follow and the title game at 7 p.m.

Mooresville advanced by winning a different sort of pitcher's dual in the opener as Brendin Oliver tossed a no-hitter in a speedy 2-0 win over Greenwood and Micah Vessely, who gave up just three hits, with both runs coming in the third.

North finds a way

Afterward, North and Martinsville slogged through a two hour, 36-minute contest that saw just six hits and 22 strikeouts combined. But North's ability to draw six walks, steal five bases, including two catching Martinsville's infield asleep after walks, and get several productive bunts down, made the difference.

The Cougars had to win unconventionally and that's OK. They'll take it after the trying season and sectional drought they've been through. Of the seven runs scored in the game, just one of them involved a player reaching or scoring via a hit.

"We have struggled offensively all year long," Hurt said. "So we have had to put some things in that you normally don't do to try to generate offense. Shout out to assistant coach Erik Pearson, he scouted Martinsville and he felt we could do that walk-run-to-second play a lot.

"And that helps our offense. We're having trouble hitting the ball, so it puts pressure on the defense."

The Cougars' played plenty of small ball and did it effectively. In the second, Drew Ogden beat out a bunt single, went to second on a sacrifice bunt and eventually scored on a wild pitch. In the fourth, a squeeze bunt brought home the run.

"We've talked about it a lot," Freund said. "In the postseason, it's hard to score runs, so we've just been trying to get runs as many ways as we can and we just took advantage of their weaknesses."

North had but four hits. Freund had one of them along with three walks and scored the go-ahead run in the three-run fifth that took Martinsville starter Rhys Wolf 34 pitches to get through.

Freund walked with one out, stole second and went to third on a passed ball. Then he waited as Will Eads walked and hustled all the way to second after a soft toss back to the pitcher and no one covering second base. Freel walked to load the bases. Both free passes came on 3-2 pitches.

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Ross Ogden hit a groundball to short to score a run, then pinch hitter Will Breedlove sent a bouncer to short and it looked like the Artesians were going to escape. But the first baseman dropped the throw and Eads and Freel came scampering home for a 5-2 edge.

"After that call at third that let them tie the game, I think that kind of lit a fire under us," Freund said. "And I think we responded really well to that."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Freel, North sneak past Martinsville in baseball sectional opener