Jim Mashek

ADMIRALS ARE IN PURSUIT OF FIFTH STRAIGHT STATE TITLE IN TENNESSEE; BOWLING GREEN IMPROVES TO 14-1 ON THE YEAR

For four innings and a little change, Knoxville’s Farragut High School looked every bit like a defending Class 4A state champion in Tennessee.

Times four.

That’s right, the Admirals are baseball royalty in the Volunteer State.

Nathan Isenberg’s Bowling Green High School squad, however, got back in the game, in the bottom of the third, and two innings later, the Admirals encountered some seriously choppy waters themselves.

Try 11 batters worth.

An opportunistic Bowling Green squad batted around, and then some, in taking a big lead against Farragut, and sophomore reliever Colt Isenberg finished the task at hand as the Purples claimed a 10-4 victory over the Admirals on Friday night at Harold J. Stihl Field.

“They’ve got 13 or 14 state titles, all time,” veteran BGHS coach Nathan Isenberg said when it was over. “They’ve put guys in the SEC, in Major League Baseball … we played a good game, stayed in contention …

“You’ve just got to grind, and stay with it, and look for that little crevice.”

Bowling Green improved to 14-1 overall, and the Purples will face Christian County on Saturday afternoon in a round-robin format. The Admirals will tangle with Christian County with the first game on the BGHS campus, and both squads figure to be postseason contenders in about a month or so. Farragut dropped to 18-4 overall with the defeat, but both teams will have plenty to play for, over the next few weeks.

“The sky’s the limit,” senior BGHS outfielder Hudson Nottmeier said.

Bowling Green’s Jack Cowan, a senior left-hander, worked the first five innings on the mound before yielding to Colt Isenberg with a six-run cushion. Farragut put two runners on base in the sixth and seventh innings — both times with just one out — but the Purples played solid defense behind him, and Bowling Green extended its winning streak to four games.

Nathan Isenberg was quick to credit the work of BGHS pitching coach Greg Scheer, who forged a solid reputation a few years ago at Louisville’s St. Xavier High School. Cowan struggled against the first two batters in the Farragut batting order — catcher Jake Harris and outfielder Aidan Flagg — but the Purples turned double plays to end the second and third frames, staying within striking distance.

“The pitchers kept us in the game,” Nathan Isenberg said. “On offense, we executed a couple hit-and-runs, had some good at bats … We’ve got a lot of arms.”

Bowling Green has a senior class of five players, veterans such as Jack Cowan, Logan Johnson and Hudson Nottmeier, but they’ve also added senior third baseman Matt Mosley, a transfer from South Warren High School.

BGHS catcher James Yarbrough got his team on the board with an RBI ground ball in the bottom of the third, and Nottmeier followed with an RBI single through the left side of the infield. In the fourth, Mosley crushed a 3-2 pitch from Farragut right-hander Casey Coleman, sending it over the fence in left-center field for his team-high third home run of the season.

“I was sitting on the fastball, a little bit,” Mosley said, “and just tried to make contact … Off the bat, I knew it was going out.”

The Purples have a solid .327 team batting average, led by senior infielder Landon Gilbert (.474), but Nottmeier (.392) and Colt Isenberg (.360) aren’t too far behind, and the bottom of the order produced some clutch at bats with the game on the line down the stretch.

Ultimately, it was Bowling Green’s patience at the plate that carried the Purples to victory.

There was an anxious moment in the fifth. That’s when BGHS catcher James Yarbrough was plunked, square on the helmet, to put two runners on base with one out for Nottmeier. But Yarbrough was OK to finish the game, after eighth grader Kipton Walden replaced him as a courtesy runner in the Purples’ big inning.

Nottmeier loaded the bases, on a bunt single, and Gilbert was hit by a pitch to tie the game at 4. The Purples’ Logan Johnson followed with a two-run single down the left-field line, and after Colt Isenberg was hit by a pitch — on the hip, in his case — Matt Mosley was hit by ANOTHER pitch. Then Jack Cowan ripped a pitch from the Admirals’ Patrick Kovacs down the left-field line, for a bases-loaded double, and that was pretty much that.

They’d score seven runs before the Admirals could retire the side.

“Our goal,” Nottmeier said with a grin, “is to lead the STATE in hit by pitches.”

Five in one inning may go a long way in that regard.

Farrugut right-hander Cole Creasman, the Admirals’ starting pitcher, yielded to teammate Will Griner to start the fifth inning, and the Purples forced Farragut coach Garrett Coleman to make two more pitching changes before the inning was over.

Cowan gave up back-to-back doubles to Farragut’s Jake Harris and Aidan Flagg to open the game, but Flagg was stranded at third as the next three Admirals batters took called third strikes. Cowan would strike out out three more batters before Colt Isenberg took the mound. Isenberg worked the final two innings for his second win of the season in as many decisions.

Nathan Isenberg’s Purples will open KHSAA 14th District play next week, in a home-and-home series with crosstown rival Warren Central, and Bowling Green, Greenwood and South Warren are all ranked, statewide.

“Our guys really don’t get too high, or too low, during the game,” Isenberg said. “We’ve got a senior class of five guys, and they know we’ve got to put in the work.”