Published: July 17, 2008 12:28 am         

Howard Co. thumps Loganland

Loganland All-Stars record just three hits, commit three errors in 14-4 loss.

WALTON — The Loganland All-Stars didn’t exactly put together an All-Star performance Wednesday in the fourth annual Pharos-Tribune/Kokomo Tribune All-Star Game.

They committed three costly errors which led to six unearned runs while managing just three hits in the nine-inning game in a 14-4 loss to the Howard County All-Stars. Loganland fell to 0-3-1 in the all-time series.

Loganland coach Greg Marschand of Lewis Cass was perplexed by the lack of hitting by his squad against six different Howard County pitchers.

“I didn’t think that we would not hit the ball. I thought that our guys would hit the ball,” he said. “Defensively I didn’t know what we’d do, and I knew pitching-wise without Luke (Zinsmaster) it’d make a difference. But I was not expecting to make so many errors and not expecting to be a little bit lethargic at the plate. It wasn’t like we hit shots that they caught. We just hit routine balls that they made every play on. But I thought we were a lot better hitters than that. Maybe I should give credit to their pitching. Maybe their pitching was better than I thought.”

Loganland did manage to score a run against arguably Howard County’s best pitcher, Bryce Robinson, a southpaw from Kokomo. The Georgia Tech recruit, who was hampered on the mound with an injury for much of his senior season, displayed a 90-mile-per-hour fastball and also had some nasty breaking pitches.

Yet Keith Lee of Lewis Cass reached via an error and came around to score on a double by Matt McKay of Logansport in the fifth inning against Robinson. McKay was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a triple.

But at that point it Kokomo led 8-1 and the next inning leading 11-1, Robinson struck out the heart of Loganland’s order in 3-4-5 hitters Grant McCloskey, Matt Turnpaugh and Colton Zeck.

“That’s the fastest I’ve seen all year,” McCloskey said of Robinson’s pitching. “It’s hard to adjust to that. And the other guys were just hitting spots — a lot of strikes.”

Howard County scored two runs in the top of the first inning against Loganland starter Riley Eller of Carroll on a two-out, two-run single by James Reed of Northwestern. Those were the last earned runs given up by Loganland until the sixth inning, and by that time Howard County had an 8-1 lead.

“They’re too good a team to make that many errors,” Marschand said. “It’s not like a regular season where you can overcome some of that.”

Loganland scored three runs in the seventh inning to get to within 11-4. Cody Conn reached on an error, Ethan Zartman walked and Ethan Watkins singled to load the bases. Elliot Rowe hit a bouncer to short that was thrown into right field to allow two runs to score. Damon Foreman then had an RBI fielder’s choice groundball.

McCloskey was voted as the MVP of the game for Loganland by media and coaches.

“I don’t really feel I contributed enough to earn the honor,” McCloskey said. “0-for-3, two K’s, that’s not MVP stats.”

If McCloskey had a vote, he said he would of voted for Caston’s Turnpaugh, who pitched the ninth inning and allowed one run and also doubled for Loganland’s first hit of the game.

“Turnpaugh went out there and pitched his heart out,” McCloskey said. “He had a great hit to start off the game.”

Marschand praised McCloskey for being “what baseball is all about.”

“He not only catches every inning you want him to catch, he plays outfield and he made a fantastic catch out there with runners on base. He’s always positive out here. He’ll be the bat boy, he’ll be the guy that chases foul balls, it’s everything. He’s what baseball stands for,” Marschand said. “The passion and love that he has for the game is awesome. I really respect that out of him. I’d take nine Grant McCloskey’s in a minute. He’s an awesome young man.”

Alex Ridlen of Northwestern was voted the MVP of the game for Howard County. He went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored.

Howard County coach Ty Calloway of Western was impressed with the Loganland squad.

“The Turnpaugh kid, he is scary. They’ve got some big kids. The size of those guys are pretty good. They were a good team,” he said. “But we had a lot of consistency up and down our lineup, and I thought that was the difference.”

Zinsmaster, the pitching ace for Logansport this past season, and Cass' Rory Mannering, a fellow All-Loganland first team selection, did not play in the game due to being in Indianapolis this week as members of the Indiana North All-Star football team.

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