2022 Nick Muller Madison County Champs, Lapel Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs celebrate their Nick Muller Madison County win over Pendleton Heights April 16 at Memorial Field in Anderson.
ANDERSON —The cold and wind may have been unpleasant for fans, but for the Lapel Bulldog baseball team, the night couldn’t have been better.
At Memorial Field, the Bulldogs took down Pendleton Heights 9-5 to grab their first Nick Muller Memorial Baseball Tournament since 2015, and the first for head coach Matt Campbell. Three of the last five times Lapel has made it to the finals.
“To finally win it is awesome for all the kids.”
“We made every run count there at the end,” Campbell said. “We made it a little dramatic, but you expect that from Pendleton. They’re not going to roll over.”
The Bulldog pitching strategy worked against the Arabians as junior Owen Imel was credited for the win.
Imel had pitched in relief the night before in the win versus Anderson and had a limited pitch count for the finals. He went 3 2/3 innings before senior Kyle Shelton came in to finish the game. Imel tallied eight strikeouts while allowing only one hit and three walks.
“Owen was on a pitch count, so that limited him,” Campbell said. “Shelton is always consistently in the strike zone, and we knew what we were going to get from him.”
When Shelton entered the game, the Arabian had two outs with bases loaded from back-to-back walks. Shelton ended the inning with a strikeout and kept the Bulldog 4-0 lead intact.
The early lead came from Rylie Hudson’s line-drive single to left field, which scored Imel in the bottom of the first. Two more runs in the second resulted from three walks, a sacrifice bunt, an Arabian error and Brennan Stow getting hit by a pitch. Imel and Quentin Roberts scored two to bring the tally to 3-0. Landon Brown scored in the bottom of the fourth for the 4-0 lead.
The Bulldogs extend the lead to 7-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning on hard singles by Landon Bair and Brown and walks for Hudson, Stow and Imel.
Pendleton finally got on the board in the top of the as Clayton Turner was walked and scored on a Nate Gilmet ground ball single to left field.
Another two runs for the Dawgs in the sixth inning brought the lead to 9-1 on a Brock Harper single that scored Bair and Imel.
Just when all signs point to a blowout win for Lapel, the Arabians found some offense in their final at bat. Aidan Clay was walked by Shelton. Caleb Frakes’ single advanced Clay to second base, and a Spencer Leppink single scored Turner. Gilmet singled to score Frakes, and the Arabians changed the score to 9-3. Jordan Green grounded, but Leppink crossed the plate to bring the score to 9-4.
With two outs, Sam Conner singled, scoring Gabe Carpenter, the pinch runner for Gilmet. The Arabians’ charge was ended when Jalen Jordan grounded into a fielder’s choice, making the final score 9-5.
Stow was thrilled to finally get the tournament win.
“Every year, we face Pendleton either in the first round, second or the championship. It feels good to get the win.”
Shelton said, “In the last four years we’ve played a lot of big teams and big games, and we’ve always come up short. It feels great to come out on top of one.”
The Bulldogs came into the game 4-0-1, and the Arabians (3-6) picked up their first wins of the season in the tournament run by defeating Madison-Grant 3-1, Frankton 7-0 and Alexandria-Monroe 14-0. They also came into the finals with a host of injuries, four games of play in five days but also a long history of success in the tournament.
The Arabians were making their 15th appearance in the finals. They won nine of those.
For the Bulldogs, their path wasn’t any easier. They picked up a first-round win 10-0 agianst Liberty Christian and had to come from behind to defeat Anderson 9-4 in the semifinals.
Lapel lost an April 18 game to Monroe Central 11-0 and play host to Eastern Hancock April 20 before traveling to Tri on April 21 and Frankton on April 22.
The Arabians were set to play host to Shelbyville April 20 and travel to Lawrence North April 22.