SOUTH BEND – In the march back to the state baseball finals, the storyline has been about the Carroll hitters.
And rightfully so.
The Chargers’ offense has scored in bunches and the timing has been pretty good as well.
The pitching, which had been in the forefront last year when Carroll won the Class 4A state title, had been relegated to a supporting role.
But senior Gavin Downs put the spotlight back on the mound.
It’s been pitching-by-committee approach with the Chargers, with no clear-cut ace. Downs has been about as close as there has been this year.
“Without pitching, you don’t give yourself a chance,” Carroll coach Dave Ginder said. “(The pitchers) have done it all year, and today it was Gavin. That’s what we expect out of him.”
Downs (11-1) gave up four hits and struck out 10 in a complete-game 9-2 victory over Crown Point in the semistate at Coveleski Stadium on Saturday.
Without an overpowering fastball or an eye-popping curveball, he entered the game with a pedestrian 2.73 ERA.
“In a lot of ways, it was a dominating performance,” Ginder said. “He has been great like that for us all year. He’s not dominating, you think, but in the end he’s got 10 strikeouts, and they hadn’t hit him hard.”
The runs are still coming, but Downs had a big hand (or right arm) in getting the top-ranked Chargers (31-2) back to a state rematch against Cathedral next Saturday at Victory Field in Indianapolis.
While the offense was doing its job with 10 hits and taking advantage of four Crown Point errors, Downs was in control against the Bulldog hitters.
“(The offense) started going and didn’t look back,” Downs said. “We just kept going and didn’t give them any room to come back.”
Downs had the shutout going until Crown Point pushed across a couple of runs in the sixth to cut it to 9-2. The decision, though, was never in much doubt.
“It’s the best feeling in the world,” Downs said of having the offense all year. “If they score one or two runs, I don’t care because I know we are going to get some more runs.”
Downs liked what he saw with the early runs from the Chargers, who built an early 4-0 lead and expanded it.
It was a reminder of the kind of outings the Chargers were getting last year out of the graduated Curtis Wise, who pitched Carroll through nine innings of a 1-0 win over Cathedral last year in the state game.
“It’s awesome to go back again,” Downs said. “I watch (Wise) last time, and he was just phenomenal. I just hope I can top his performance and bring back two championships to Carroll.”
It was a far cry from the Carroll team that had to rally to win three postseason games in dramatic fashion.
“It’s the first time, it seems, that we got up early in a game,” Downs said. “It’s a lot nicer.
“That’s the best feeling in the world because you have some room for mistakes, even though you don’t want to make mistakes. You still have room for them. That just helps you relax out there.”
Downs said he also gave an assist from the defense.
“I had a lot of help,” he said. “I take my hat off to them because I couldn’t do it all by myself.”
