By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – The quote, from 19th century novelist James Lane Allen, is famous, worn out from overuse like a favorite old baseball glove. “Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.” Bedford North Lawrence was both the self-inflicted example of unpleasant circumstances and the poster-worthy subject for the way it was handled.
With five starters serving a one-game suspension for a violation of team rules, the short-handed Stars went to battle with a junior varsity disguised in varsity uniforms. Of the 15 players who made the box score for the clash with Evansville Reitz, 14 were freshmen or sophomores. In competitive baseball terms, they were barely out of booster seats.
Rather than use that as an excuse, it became a rallying cry. BNL scratched together a remarkable, improbable rally in the bottom of the seventh, but Reitz ruined the storybook finish with three runs in the eighth to conquer the Stars 6-3 on Friday evening.
Reitz (1-1) escaped when third baseman Bradyn Angel made an off-balance, stumbling throw to record the third out in the bottom of the seventh, when Oliver Gates led off the 8th with a monster home run over the 345-foot sign in right-center field. Who knew a frozen baseball could fly that far? It was the blow that finally deflated the Stars, although the Panthers made sure to finish it off with two insurance runs.
For BNL (1-2) to rise above the situation and push Reitz to the limit was inspiring, a glimpse into the future of the program. There’s no such thing as a moral victory, but this was a morale lift in defeat.
“I’ll tell you this, the boys responded,” BNL coach Steven McNabb said. “Sometimes, when you face adversity like we faced, it can rally a team around each other. There can be positives when you handle them the right way. I hope all 26 boys understand what this program will stand for as we move forward. It’s bigger than baseball, it’s about life and right versus wrong. My job is to make them better young men. That’s what this was about.”
Reitz scored twice in the first on a two-out double by Angel. The Panthers added a run in the sixth via a hit batter, a BNL error, and Angel’s RBI single.
BNL scored its three runs with only one hit. Two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases, and the first run scored on Grady Dalton’s ground out. After another walk, freshman Grayson Gillespie stroked a two-out, two-run single for force a 3-3 deadlock. Charlie Keith cracked a ground ball to the left side, where Angel made a stumbling snag, narrowly avoided a face plant on the turf, and tossed to second base for the force out to end the comeback.
“That’s the only play he could have made,” Reitz coach Todd DeWeese said.
Then came the blast by Gates, who clubbed a ball through the wind and over the fence.
“He got a pitch that he could handle, a pitch he was looking for,” DeWeese said. “He’s a high-ball hitter, and he took care of it from there.”
Reitz added the final two runs on Landon McCutchan’s RBI single and Winston Howell’s sacrifice fly. Angel was a devil against the Stars, going 4 for 4 with three RBIs.
“This is one where things went in our favor,” DeWeese said. “We let them back in it, so I’m glad to see we had the fight in us at the end.”
Gillespie was 3 for 4 for BNL, which managed 7 hits.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the fight and grit, all the young guys,” McNabb said. “The score was what it was, but it was a good night for our program.
”We talked about walking it off in the seventh. We about did it. We were a couple of inches away, a couple of stumbles away from getting that done. Unfortunately it didn’t happen, and that’s baseball. We showed some character and grit, what I want BNL baseball to be like for the future. It was the epitome of what I want this baseball community to represent.”
BNL will visit Bloomington South on Monday.
