Posted on 31 March 2008 by brianmaguire1.
Mike McGraw
Hoosier Authority
Crawfordsville baseball coach John Froedge is a low key guy.
The long time Athenian mentor can bend your ear for hours when talking about
baseball, but you can bet the word “I” won’t be heard very often. Froedge is
all about the accomplishments of his players and teams.
Modest or not, this week the spotlight is shining on
Froedge. The veteran mentor won the 500th game of his career
Saturday during Crawfordsville’s annual southern trip. The milestone came in a
1-0 victory over Lancaster, Ohio
in Shelbyville, Kentucky. In all, Froedge has a career mark
of 501-270 in 26 years. Fifteen Sagamore Conference titles have come during
that time.
The circumstances of the monumental victory were anything
but normal. Crawfordsville was rained out on Friday when they were originally
scheduled to play the squad from Ohio.
That led to the Athenians playing three games in one day on Saturday. When the
dust cleared, it was a pretty good day. Crawfordsville won two of the contests
and dropped the third in extra innings.
It started with the landmark 1-0 win over Lancaster. It is only fitting that two of the
Athenians senior leaders were right in the middle of the outcome. Brett Linn
led off the eighth inning drawing a walk and then proceeded to steal his way to
third. He scored on a passed ball to give Crawfordsville all the offense it
would need. Andrew Swart retired the side in order on the bottom of the extra
frame and the landmark victory was complete. The win was also a landmark for
swart, who captured his 30th career victory.
Senior Cody Dowell notched his first victory of the season
in the 4-2 win over Bryan station, Ky.. The Athenians took
control with a three run fourth inning highlighted by a Blake Harris RBI
single. They were never headed the rest of the way.
The day was oh so close to being perfect. Crawfordsville
held a 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh against host Shelbyville
in the nightcap, but were victimized by a two run homer to send the game to
extra innings. In the eighth, Crawfordsville again seized the lead, scoring
twice. However, defense failed the Athenians in the bottom of the inning. They
allowed to unearned runs, and three in all, for the 6-5 final.
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Posted on 26 March 2008 by brianmaguire1.
Mike McGraw
Hoosier Authority
Coach John Froedge had to be happy with the offense shown by
his 3A top ranked Athenians in their season opener at Zionsville Tuesday night.
He is anticipating that Crawfordsville’s hitting will catch up with what
everyone expects to be an outstanding pitching staff. Unfortunately, on this
night it was that pitching that had some trouble. The result was the Athenians
dropping a 15-10 decision to the Eagles.
It certainly didn’t start out to be a slugfest. Crawfordsville
scratched a run across in the first when leadoff hitter and center fielder
Brett Linn singled, stole second and eventually scored on a Cody Dowell fielder’s
choice. Zionsville took advantage of some control problems by Crawfordsville
starter Andrew Swart to return the favor in the bottom of the second.
The fireworks started in the third inning when
Crawfordsville plated four runs in the top half of the frame and Zionsville’s
Keith Rogers blasted a two run homer in the bottom half to make it 5-3 after
three innings. Zionsville then broke the game open with an eight run fourth
inning.
Crawfordsville kept it interesting throughout including
plating two runs in the seventh courtesy of a Dowell RBI double. By that time,
however, the Eagles were in complete control.
Despite the loss, the coaching staff had to be happy with
the Athenians’ offensive output. Linn went 4-5 on the afternoon from the
leadoff spot and 2B Brett McKinney was 2-3 hitting in the second slot. 6-9 from
the top two spots in the order will win a lot of games. Dowell finished the
game 2-4 and Scott Hunt added a 1-3, 3 RBI performances.
Crawfordsville will try to right the ship this weekend when
they travel to Shelbyville,
Kentucky for three games on
Friday and Saturday. In addition to the hosts, the Athenians will meet squads
from Lancaster, Ohio
and Bryan Station, Kentucky.
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