Published: May 04, 2008 12:29 am         

No. 5 Caston splits with Wabash

Comets win game one 5-4 in thriller, fall in game two 13-4.

FULTON — It was a tale of two games Saturday at Caston’s baseball field.

The Comets, ranked fifth in Class A, topped Wabash 5-4 in game one on a walk-off RBI single by Josh Hauser. In game two, Caston lost its scheduled starter to a freak injury before the game even started and coach Blake Mollenkopf said his squad lost its focus in a 13-4 defeat.

Caston’s No. 2 pitcher Matt Turnpaugh earned the win in game one pitching as wind gusts up to 38 miles per hour were blowing out to left field. He allowed four runs on six hits and two walks, striking out nine.

The Comets (14-3) led 4-3 with two outs in the top of the seventh inning when Wabash’s Luke Harness got a Turnpaugh offering up in the jet stream for a home run to tie the game.

Caston quickly loaded the bases in the bottom of the frame with no outs before Wabash (6-9) starter Joey Burns got Turnpaugh, Caston’s cleanup hitter and one of the leading RBI men in the state, to pop up on the infield. Hauser then deposited a Burns offering into right field to score leadoff man Evan Pulliam, who started the rally with a base hit, to end the game.

Hauser and Pulliam both went 2-for-4 in the contest. Ethan Zartman went 2-for-2 with a two-run homer.

Game two went bad for the Comets before it even started. No. 3 pitcher Shawn Rentschler was hit in the face with an errant baseball as he was warming up before his scheduled start in the bullpen. Rentschler had to be taken to the hospital for stitches and didn’t play in the game.

“He just got one in the lip on the mound down there and split it open,” Mollenkopf said of the junior left-hander. “He went to the hospital and got stitches, so we hope he’s back on Monday ready to go just being able to play with some stitches in his lip.”

Wabash scored 13 runs on 12 hits against three Caston pitchers in game two. Wabash leadoff hitter Trey Mendenhall opened the game with a home run and finished with three runs scored.

With wind still blowing out at gusts up to 38 miles per hour, the temperature dropped from 61 degrees in game one to 49 degrees in game two. And as the temperature dropped, so did the Comets’ focus according to Mollenkopf.

“I felt like we didn’t have very good focus the second game. You have an injury and one of your teammates gets hurt, then it gets cold and then you give up an early home run,” said Mollenkopf, whose squad committed three errors and walked six batters in the contest. “But you know what, good teams find a way to get refocused and right back into a game, and that’s what we need to do. We’ve done it all year, we just didn’t do it today. It’s just one of those situations we need to get better at.”

For Caston at the plate, Zartman hit another two-run shot. Ryan Williams and Ben Peterson both had RBI singles. Ryley Williams had a base hit and scored a pair of runs.

The Comets travel to North Miami on Tuesday night before traveling to top-ranked Frontier for a showdown next Saturday in a Midwest Conference twin bill. Mollenkopf plans to pitch ace Elliot Rowe at North Miami and then go with his 1-2 punch of Rowe and Turnpaugh at Frontier’s hitter-friendly confines.

“It’s a little shorter than normal,” Mollenkopf said of the outfield fence of the Chalmers Community Park baseball field. “We’ve just got to play with those. We’ve played there. Both Elliot and Matt have had conference starts there two years ago. Elliot pitched extremely well. You’ve got to keep the ball down and force ground balls and play to that. We’re swinging at the same fences, so we’ve got to be able to do that, too.”

Mollenkopf added the Comets’ fast start to the season and high state ranking are not a surprise to him and his squad.

“We all expected to be this good,” he said. “I thought last year we underachieved a little bit, (finishing) under .500. Our one and two (pitchers) are solid. We can play solid defense. One through nine I think can hit an awful lot of people, so I expected to have this type of season.”

Beau Wicker can be contacted at (574)732-5113 or via e-mail at beau.wicker @pharostribune.com