“We’re playing really good ball right now,” said Cougars coach Matt Root, whose squad is 11-4 overall and alone in second place in the SWOC with a 5-1 mark. “All year we’ve been pitching and playing good defense, and the bats have been coming along with us.
“The kids are playing as a team and they’re playing all phases, which is good. They’re really putting a lot of pressure on the other team to step up and bring the energy that they’re bringing.”
Paul Donisi tossed a six-hitter for Edgewood, which trails only Harrison (11-3, 6-0) in the conference. Those teams don’t play until May 2 and 4.
“Harrison’s the champ until somebody beats them,” Root said of the three-time defending champion Wildcats. “We’re still a work in progress, but we’re in a good place right now. We can’t be complacent. We’ve got to keep getting after it every day. I think if they stay together, we can do some really good things.”
Nobody in the EHS camp is thinking about Harrison just yet, not with four SWOC games looming before May 2.
“I think we’re a pretty good baseball team,” senior third baseman Zach Smith said. “If we just take it one game at a time and do what we know how to do, I think we can make something happen.”
Smith doubled, singled, drove in two runs and scored three times against Ross. Dakota Craft contributed a double and three RBIs, and Koby Schmidt, Ethan McCarty and Cody Baker added an RBI apiece.
Donisi only had one perfect inning (the first), but the senior right-hander didn’t walk anybody and totaled two strikeouts to push his record to 5-1.
“Our confidence is way up right now,” Donisi said. “When you have a defense like we do, it makes it more easy. My fastball was working, and I was hitting spots.”
“Donisi is our No. 1,” Root said. “He just keeps hitters off balance to where it’s hard to time him up. He gets a lot of ground balls and a lot of pop-ups. Our defense likes playing behind him because they know they’re going to get a lot of action.”
The Rams’ pitchers didn’t have such a good day. Thomas House, Austin Cahill and Sam Stepaniak combined to issue eight walks and hit three batters.
Austin McKee collected two singles and drove in the lone run for Ross (10-7, 4-2) in the sixth inning.
“We didn’t swing very well, we didn’t pitch very well,” Rams coach Jason Rettinger said. “All day long we’re walking guys, and we’re in hitters’ counts every single batter. They did what you’re supposed to do when you’re up in the count. They did a really good job of going with pitches and sitting on pitches that were up in the zone a little bit.”
Ross has dropped four of its last five games heading into back-to-back matchups with Harrison (Friday at home, Monday at HHS).
The Rams lost to Edgewood 6-2 in nine innings last Thursday. They also lost junior shortstop Brennan Morton for the season in that game — he suffered multiple injuries while getting hit in the face with a throw.
“We have not played well since we lost our shortstop,” Rettinger said. “We need to get over that and other guys need to step up because he’s not coming back. I think he’s the best defensive shortstop in the area, but every team gets injuries. We can’t use that as an excuse. We’ve still got to be able to get it done.
“We’ve made it pretty tough on ourselves now, but the two goals that we want are still in play. We just really have to get it done now.”
Smith said sweeping Ross is a huge deal to the Cougars, who now have a four-game winning streak in the series.
“It’s always big, when they come here especially,” Smith said. “We chatter, they chatter, but it was overall a good day for baseball.”
Edgewood hosts Talawanda on Friday.
Ross 000-001-0—1-6-2
Edgewood 201-401-x—8-7-1
WP — Paul Donisi (5-1); LP — Thomas House (3-2). Records: R 10-7, 4-2 SWOC; E 11-4, 5-1 SWOC
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