Though their offense took a step back from a strong showing earlier in the week, Apollo battled through for a 4-2 victory over Daviess County in Friday night’s 9th District baseball matchup.
The Eagles (13-11, 3-2 9th District) rode the arm of winning pitcher Nick Judd, who didn’t quite have his usual stuff but still limited the Panthers (8-15, 0-5) to four hits in a complete game.
Apollo head coach Mason Head said he could tell in warmups that Judd was a little off, but the coach had trust in his freshman.
“I think we saw pretty early that he wasn’t feeling his best today,” Head said. “Such a gritty performance by him — not feeling his best, but finding a way to make what he had effective and trusting his defense to make plays for him.”
Judd finally got some help from the offense in the fourth inning, when Apollo broke a 1-1 tie by plating three runs.
With two quick outs to start the inning, the Eagles got runners aboard with a single by Tommy Clark and walk by Jakob Helms. Trevor Payne drove in Clark, and Helms scored on an error. Max Holder then drove in Payne with a single for a 4-1 lead.
Daviess County was only able to trim the deficit by one with a run in the sixth, as Cole Troutman grounded out to plate Wesley Hamilton.
Despite the loss, Daviess County head coach Brandon Dennis was overall happy with the performance by his team.
“Tonight, I feel like we competed and when we started to backslide a little bit, we shut it down, and that’s something we’ve struggled to do this year,” Dennis said. “We’re going to call that a win because we figured out how to do that in this game — this was a big-time game for that to happen. We’re going to use that for momentum here heading into the last couple weeks just try to get ready to go for district tournament.”
Judd finished the night with six strikeouts and only walked one batter. Holder was the only batter to record two hits, and Josh Maddox had the only double of the game.
Apollo has now won five in a row, including three against 9th District opponents, and they’ll have an important home contest against Owensboro on Tuesday. The Eagles could gain a share of the top spot in the district with a win, while the Red Devils would take first place outright with a victory of their own.
AHS 100-300-0—4-5-1
DCHS 100-010-0—2-4-1
WP: Judd. LP: Curtis. 2B: Maddox.
