GROVE CITY — Nothing seems to come easy for the Mount Vernon High School baseball team. As witnessed in the Division I sectional final against Tri-Valley, teams are giving the Yellow Jackets their best shots — and the Jackets keep on going.
The Pickerington North Panthers gave Mount Vernon its best on Thursday evening, but once again it wasn’t good enough. The Jackets rallied from four down to tie the game in the seventh inning, and five innings later, got a clutch two-out single from Kody Green to beat the Panthers, 5-4, in the bottom of the 12th inning.
“This is a great bunch of competitors,” said Mount Vernon coach Doug Savage. “They’ve been this way all season long, and they didn’t want their season to end. ... We had a lot of scoring opportunities that we didn’t capitalize on, or we could have ended it a little bit sooner. This feels good. Kody Green has had a great year as far as game-winning hits are concerned. We also did a nice job with our sacrifice bunt game, moving runners over into scoring position. Then we finally got the clutch hit we needed to end it.”
The win advances the Jackets (26-3) to the Division I Central District Final on Saturday afternoon at 2.
While the offense earned the victory, a large part of the credit has to go to senior Robert Kane and the Jacket defense. Russell Doup started the game, but lasted only 2 2/3 innings. He gave up three walks — all of which scored — and left the game with a 4-0 deficit. What Kane did from there was nothing short of spectacular.
