For The Tribune

CROTHERSVILLE

Jake VonDielingen hit the second pitch of the game over the fence in left field for a home run to help the Trinity Lutheran baseball team lead all the way in a 20-3 win against Crothersville Friday afternoon.

All the Trinity starters had at least one hit and scored at least one run.

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The Cougars sent eight batters to the plate in the first inning and scored four runs. They sent 12 batters up in the second inning and scored six times, and 13 hitters took their swings in the third inning with seven scoring.

The big offensive output is something Coach Matt VonDielingen said he has been looking for.

“That’s the second game in a row we’ve hit the ball. We hit the ball over at Brown County. I really think that’s what we’re going to be capable of all year,” he said. “It’s a product of hard work. They worked hard in the off-season and they’ve really been going at it.”

The big blow in the second inning was a two-run homer to right-center by Nick Mensendiek, and Jacob Crockett hit a two-run single in the third.

Mensendiek finished with four hits and three runs, Kendall White had three hits and three RBI.

VonDeliengen, Jake Moore, Crockett and Trent Shoemaker all had two hits.

Mensendiek, Ross Kruse and Crockett had two RBIs apiece. VonDileingen, Mensendiek and Moore scored three runs apiece.

VonDielingen pitched the first two innings and Mensendiek finished up, and they held the Tigers hitless until the fifth when they bunched three hits and two Cougars errors together to score their runs.

Jonathan Ritz started the bottom of the fifth by reaching first base on an error and he later scored on a wild pitch.

Jessie Fink singled for the Tigers’ first hit. Logan Collins and Jonathan Wiesman followed with hits with Wiesman’s hit driving in a run, and Collins scored on an error.

Crothersville coach Jared Richey was happy to see his team’s offense come to life in the fifth inning.

“I’d say definitely at the end of the game we had some positives,” Richey said. “When we started hitting we saw that we can play. They started throwing away the ball and we got them flustered a little bit. We can score runs.”

Coach VonDielingen said his team lost some of its focus in the fifth.

“We got to the last inning and we lost focus,” he said. “We had one throwing error and that begot another throwing error and it kind of got away from us for an out or two, and then we got refocused and we finished it.”

VonDielingen and Mensendiek combined to strike out nine, walk one and allow three hits.

Coach VonDielingen said he was not pleased with his pitchers hitting four batters.

“We had a couple hit batters, which I don’t like,” he said. “We’ve got to have better control than that. You don’t like free base runners, especially on just one pitch, but all-in-all it was a pretty good outing for both of them.”

The Cougars take a 2-2 record into today’s 1 p.m. game at Hauser.

Richey said the Tigers (0-2) needs a better start in today’s 11 a.m. game at Southwestern (Hanover).

“I’d say our (three) pitchers did their job. Trinity hit, we’re throwing strikes,” he said. “Our defense, now we’re not showing a lot of situational awareness. We’ve got slightly a young team out there (just one senior) so we’re still building them up and building the program as a whole.”