Cathedral ends Shelbyville's season at Class 3A baseball regional championship game

GREENWOOD – Shelbyville’s first postseason error proved costly.

After playing three error-free games to win the baseball program’s first sectional championship since 2005, a fifth-inning error in Saturday’s regional championship game against Indianapolis Cathedral sparked the Fighting Irish to a 6-1 victory.

Trailing 1-0 with one-out in the top of the fifth inning at Center Grove High School, Cathedral put two runners on base with an infield single and a hit-by-pitch. Reece Prickett then snared a chopper off the bat of Braden Mann and wheeled toward third base to attack the lead runner.

In the rush to potentially turn a double play, Prickett’s throw sailed well past third baseman Adair Zermeno which allowed both base runners to score.

“I didn’t blame him for trying to get the lead out at third. I just thought he had a little bit more time and it sailed on him,” said Shelbyville head coach Jacob Shively after the loss.

Shelbyville senior Gavin Reed swings at a pitch Saturday against Cathedral in the Class 3A baseball regional championship game at Center Grove High School.

Michael Gallagher followed with a run-scoring single to make it 3-1 and the Golden Bears never threatened again against Cathedral starting pitcher Henry Haley.

“We weren’t too unhappy with the approach. We kind of figured (Haley) out,” said Shively. “We were aggressive like we’ve been wanting all year. It just didn’t fall for us. We had hard hits here and there but just couldn’t put anything together.”

Haley improved to 9-1 for Cathedral this year and lowered his earned run average to 1.80 in the win. He will lead the Fighting Irish (21-9-1) to the Jasper Semistate to face Gibson Southern (26-6) in one semifinal contest.  

The other Class 3A semistate game at Jasper features Providence (25-5) and Guerin Catholic (25-3-1).

Shelbyville took the lead in the bottom of the first when Austin Martzall reached on an error. He moved to second on Gavin Reed’s single.

A long fly ball out by Prickett advanced Martzall to third and he scored on a passed ball to give Shelbyville early momentum.

With Aiden Smith sidelined with a knee injury, Prickett earned the start and benefited from a double play to end the first inning. The senior notched three strikeouts in the second and needed just 13 pitches to get through the third.

Cathedral used a walk and a single in the fourth to get two runners on but Prickett struck out Royce Ward to end the threat.

The Golden Bears had runners on base in the second, third and fourth innings but could not open up their lead.

After Gallagher’s hit in the fifth, Martzall (photo) took the mound and closed out the inning. The sophomore had a clean sixth inning then ran into trouble in the seventh.

A leadoff walk was followed by a fielding error on Martzall. Gallagher reached on a fielder’s choice before Chase Nickols and Scout Bushong collected RBIs on back-to-back hits to extend the lead to 6-1.

Martzall smashed a two-out triple in the bottom of the seventh, but Haley finished off the complete game performance with a ground out by Reed.

Shelbyville finished with four hits and two walks. Haley struck out seven.

“We did pick up the rhythm. Lot of fastballs starting off everybody for the most part,” said Shively of facing Haley. “We were trying to be aggressive so we didn’t get down late in the count.

“He did get in a groove. Hats off to him. He did a great job. He had a lot of stamina. He made us hit it. I liked the fact that he trusted his defense.”

Shelbyville (20-5) won its first Hoosier Heritage Conference championship since 2014 and made its first regional appearance in two-plus decades with four seniors, all infielders.

Smith (7-0, 1.16 ERA on the mound; .479, 17 extra-base hits, 30 RBIs at the plate), Prickett (.370, 15 runs, 18 RBIs), Reed (.342, 12 runs, 21 RBIs) and Brady Bryant (.338, 16 runs, 12 RBIs) will need to be replaced but Shively has a strong roster to pull from to reload as the program moves into the Hoosier Legends Conference.

“We just talked about first of all, appreciating the seniors because they led us,” said Shively of his final team meeting on the field. “Then we talked about our role players 1 through 9, stepping up for the most part. At the end, we brought up JV players that proved themselves.

“When I look at it, we have a lot of people with a lot of varsity experience back next year.”

Steve Bush photos

The Shelby County Post is a digital newspaper producing news, sports, obituaries and more without a pay wall or subscription needed.