JASPER — Things can change so quickly in baseball, as evidenced by Jasper having a 6-3 lead in the bottom of the sixth Wednesday against Gibson Southern before a massive two-out rally prompted the Class 3A-No. 4 Wildcats (19-3) to a run-rule win, 13-3, in their makeup game from Monday’s rainout with the Titans.
Gibson Southern gradually crawled back into the game — taking a 6-1 deficit and trimming it in half with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth. The Wildcats, meanwhile, struck out with the bases loaded to end the bottom of half and didn’t score any runs, but they put good swings on pitches for a good portion of the night, and it showed in the sixth.
“We’re not very strong right now with the bases loaded — we try to do too much,” Jasper coach Terry Gobert said. “I told them, in my opinion, it’s easier to bat with the bases loaded — he has to throw you strikes at some point, and we keep getting ourself out. We get too anxious, we try to chase something that maybe you can’t drive. So, we have to have better patience, but yet, you got to jump on that first good fastball.”
Gobert noted the team had some good swings and hard outs. Jasper made sure to drive it against Gibson pitching — giving baseballs a distance, but not quite getting a home run Wednesday in spite of launching some deep.
“All of last week and the beginning of this week, we had been focused so heavy on, working on going to the right,” said senior Matthew Wright, who was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored. “And before the game, Coach Gobert just said, ‘Go up to the plate, do you, just swing at your pitch and drive it where it’s pitched — and I think as a team, we did a great job of that tonight.”
Wright provided crucial moments throughout the game — scoring the very first run off an RBI double from sophomore Kai Kunz, and Wright himself drove in sophomore Brayden Giesler and junior Thomas Habig to put Jasper out in front again in the bottom of the third after the Titans tied it in the top half of that inning. And Kunz drove him in again in the bottom of the sixth — scoring the first of seven runs to put the run-rule in effect.
And senior Maverick Merkel, who doesn’t always get into games, delivered the walk off when he lined one into the outfield that scored Giesler to end it.
Gobert told Merkel before his at-bat to be patient, sit back — as he can’t do anything until he gets a strike.
“(Merkel) works as hard as anybody on this team, he does anything we need — so it was fun to see him get a walk off,” he said. “He deserves it, he’s worked really hard and it was a nice, clean hit.”
Jasper’s pitchers issued seven walks Wednesday, with the Wildcats using three pitchers — none of whom worked more than 2.1 innings. Kunz started, couldn’t always locate, but still got four strikeouts, and his coach talked about him not being out there much on the mound.
“We were going to bring (junior Cole) Trevino in on the seventh — we need to get him out there as well,” Gobert said.
The Wildcats have two days to get ready for a pair of county rivalry games Friday and Saturday — both against ranked competition. They’re scheduled Friday to travel to League Stadium to take on No. 9 Southridge, while being set Saturday to welcome in Class 2A-No. 1 Forest Park.
“We got to cover some picks, little things defensively, but also, we’re going to keep working on the bunting game,” Gobert said. “We’re not fast, so we got to run the bases aggressively, but smart.”
“We’re just going to play our game — Coach Gobert’s gotten us ready and we’re just going to come out there and play Jasper baseball and give it our best,” Wright said.
