For The Tribune

NORTH VERNON

The scoreboard wasn’t working at Jennings County High School on Friday night for the Panthers’ baseball game with Seymour.

That was OK. With two of the top pitchers in the Hoosier Hills Conference going head-to-head, they barely needed it.

Jennings’ Caleb Eder and Seymour’s Janzen Bloom combined to allow only six hits, and the Panthers were the only team to cross the plate in a 3-0 victory.

“I had some good stuff tonight,” Eder said. “Everything was working. I was hitting spots well, so it was all going good for me.”

Eder struck out nine and walked only one.

“He threw strikes, and we knew it was going to be a battle,” Seymour coach Jeremy Richey said. “We knew we were going to have to make some things happen, and when we don’t get anybody on base until there’s two out, that’s tough to do.”

Bloom, meanwhile, took a no-hitter into the fifth inning, yet trailed 2-0. The Panthers (4-2) got on the board in the second when Justin Pettit walked, took second and third on wild pitches and scored on a groundout by Lane Staples.

Jennings added to its lead in the second when Ethan Jarvis walked, stole second, went to third on a groundout and scored on a perfectly-executed suicide squeeze by Avery Johnson.

“We just allowed them to play the game tonight,” Richey said. “They got guys on early, and when we got guys on, we got them on late and couldn’t do much about it. That’s the frustrating part about it, and that’s something that our guys are going to have to learn.”

The Panthers added an insurance run in the sixth when they reached Bloom for three of their four hits.

Bloom had the second and final hit for the Owls (7-4), a two-out single in the fifth.

“I think we have a pretty good group in there (in the dugout), and they grew up a little bit tonight,” Richey said. “We have a lot of young guys that played, and they battled. We just have to do better offensively if we’re going to beat anybody.”