Class 3A, No. 9 Shelbyville shuts down Beech Grove

INDIANAPOLIS – Class 3A, No. 9 Shelbyville put together a near-perfect performance Thursday at Anthony LaPinta Field in its Roncalli Sectional opening win over Beech Grove, 4-0.

Aiden Smith (photo) pitched an efficient five innings. Austin Martzall closed out the final two. And the bottom third of the lineup was productive (three hits, two RBIs) which allowed the Golden Bears to cruise to their sixth shutout victory of the season.

Shelbyville (18-4) will face Hoosier Heritage Conference rival New Palestine (15-9) Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Roncalli High School. It will be the third meeting this season between the two programs.

The Golden Bears won both those games with Smith starting on the mound. The Kentucky commit will not start Saturday after throwing 80 pitches Thursday. He will be available to start the championship game Monday if Shelbyville gets there.

Smith improved to 7-0 this season and lowered his earned run average to 1.16 with a strong performance against the Hornets (11-13-2). The right-hander allowed one hit, a fifth inning double by Mason Thacker, one walk, one hit by pitch, and struck out 10 to push his season strikeout total to 77 over 42.1 innings pitched.

“Keeping Aiden at 80 (pitches). We questioned sending him out again (in the sixth inning), trusting he could go on three days rest whether it was 80 or 90 (pitches). They were at the bottom of the lineup,” said Shelbyville head coach Justin Shively on managing Smith’s workload. “We decided scoring those extra couple of runs we had a little buffer. It allowed him to rest a little bit … and saved 15 to 20 pitches.”

Shelbyville staked its ace to an early lead in the second inning. Brady Bryant (photo) opened the inning with a walk from Beech Grove starter Guerin Boshears. He scored on Brayden Smith’s double to the wall for a 1-0 lead. Smith then scored on Kellen Linville’s first-pitch single that doubled the advantage.

Smith helped end his day on the mound in the bottom of the fifth with a RBI single that scored Austin Martzall, who reached on one of his three walks in the game. Smith later scored on a bases-loaded walk to Bryant.

Martzall assumed the pitching duties in the sixth and made quick work of the Hornets.

In the seventh, the lefty allowed a leadoff single to Isaac Richardson and walked Boshears to make it interesting. He struck out three of the next four hitters to close out the win.

The second round of quarterfinal games are today at Roncalli. Rushville (8-14) battles Indian Creek (10-10) at 5 p.m. The No.  ranked Royals (19-5) then host Greenwood (11-14) in the second game.

Steve Bush photos

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