GROVE CITY — The East Knox Bulldogs, behind pitcher Nick Kidd’s complete-game, four-hit pitching, beat the highly favored Bishop Hartley Hawks in their Division III tournament matchup on Monday, 6-1.
Third-seeded Bishop Hartley was held to no more than one hit in any inning by Kidd and a tight Bulldogs’ defense.
“(Bishop Hartley) was a tough team,” said Kidd. “We went up against them when we were sophomores once. I knew that I was pitching since last Friday. I came out knowing that I was going to pitch the whole game. I just threw strikes and my fielders helped me out.”
The Bulldogs’ bats came alive right away, as they picked up a pair of runs in the first off Hartley starter Justin Momeyer.
“I was pretty impressed, the way we came out in the first couple of innings,” said East Knox coach Kevin Gallwitz. “We were really excited — a lot of enthusiasm.”
East Knox centerfielder Colton Tucker and shortstop John Burwell each singled and teammate Justin Duvall walked to start off the first. Kidd walked to force in a run and give the Bulldogs the early lead. Third baseman Jordan Hill hit into a 6-4-3 double play, but two more runs scored to make it a 3-0 Bulldogs’ advantage.
Duvall broke it open in the second, rocketing a double to right that scored Tucker and right fielder Jon Washatka.
“I was just going up there, looking for a base hit,” said Duvall. “I ended up hitting it pretty good in the gap and we ended up scoring two runs off of it.”
That was a great big shot of confidence for Kidd and the Bulldogs, who took a commanding 5-0 lead, chasing Momeyer in favor of Hartley reliever Chad Schmitz.
“We came out and smashed the ball — I loved it,” said Kidd. “We just kept scoring and scoring. We got ahead and that felt nice.”
“We got the ball on the bat,” said Gallwitz. “We were disciplined at the plate. We made (Momeyer) put it in the zone where we could do something with it. We weren’t swinging at bad stuff.”
Kidd stopped a Hartley threat in the sixth, striking out big Andy Losinski, who was caught looking, to get the second out. Later, the threat died out with the bases loaded when Kidd got Momeyer, who was pinch hitting, to fly out to Tucker in center.
“I got a couple of strikeouts but I wasn’t going for too many strikeouts,” said Kidd. “I’d like to have had a few more, but I’m happy.”
“(Kidd) did a super job out there,” said Gallwitz. “He’s a co-captain this year. He really stepped it up. I figured he would because the last big game he pitched for us was against Utica, they beat us 1-0 and he did a super job for us. He did a really good job, today. He was really focused and showed us some senior leadership.”
“Nick pitched really good and we played really good defense,” said Duvall. “We knew (Hartley) was good and we had to be on our game. We figured we had to be up the whole game if we were going to win.”
For Gallwitz, and this group of seniors, this sweet victory has been four years in the making.
“I used to be the jayvee coach and I’ve coached a lot of these guys since they were freshmen,” said Gallwitz. “I’ll be honest with you. We worked very, very hard in the off season, lifting weights, running and conditioning. I think it’s really paid off. These guys have shown a lot of discipline and they worked hard. I think I worked these guys harder than anybody I ever had because I thought that we had a pretty good opportunity of being successful this year.”
Gallwitz and the Bulldogs will get a chance to prove that against North Union on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. in Grove City.
