By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – Gamers love their cheat codes. For those who are not addicted to the time-consuming fantasy worlds of screens and adventures, those are combinations of secret passwords or phrases that allow for skipping difficult levels.
Cam Gates was a one-man cheat code for Bedford North Lawrence against a difficult opponent. In a team game that usually demands contributions from all nine in the lineup, Gates was a single source of power. Kids fantasize about games like this. Gates made dreams a reality on Monday evening.
On the mound, he was virtually unhittable. At the plate, he was an extra-base punisher. Gates was a BNL version of Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani as the Stars conquered Seymour 6-1 and extended their modest winning streak to three straight.
With his bat, Gates was sensational with two triples and a laser-beam home run. With his arm, Gates was spectacular, throwing a complete-game one-hitter with only 82 pitches. Of course, he had some help with defense (four outstanding plays) and offense (Jackson Jones and Grady Dalton both drove in two runs). But the story was Gates, as he grounded the Owls (7-4) with a strike-zone slider, as he pounded out 10 total bases and scored three times, the last time while trotting.
“He had himself a day,” BNL coach Steven McNabb said. “Those are days, playing in your back yard, walking through all the scenarios as a kid in wiffle ball (do kids still play that?). Two triples, a homer and a complete game on the mound. That’s cheat-code stuff on the PlayStation.”
Level One: The mound. Gates surrendered a first-inning run, and what would be the lone hit, on a two-out RBI single by Mack Longmeier. From that point, he was vicious with his slider and fastball, striking out seven, retiring 14 straight at one point.
“The slider was really working,” Gates said. “I was getting ahead with it, throwing it for a strike (52 of his 82 pitches found the zone), keeping them off balance. When we got the lead back, it was going back out there, pitching with the lead, getting ahead. If they hit it, they hit it.“
Level Two: The bat. In the bottom of the first, Gates jumped on the first pitch and ripped a triple into the right-center gap. He scored on a Jones single, and Jones came around following a walk and two wild pitches.
In the third, Gates led off with another first-pitch blast to the fence in deep right-center, and he came home on Jones’ sacrifice fly. In the sixth, he added an insurance run (on the sixth pitch of the plate appearance) with a line-drive screamer over the fence in left.
“In the first, I knew I was going to get a heater, so I saw it and put a good swing on it,” Gates said. “The second time, I was waiting back because I figured I would get a curve ball. On the last one, I was just trying to put a ball in play. It felt really good.”
BNL added two more runs in the third after Gates came home. Following walks to Cutler Chastain and Jaden Gilbert and a wild pitch, with the Seymour infield drawn in, Dalton stroked a solid single to right to score both for a 5-1 advantage.
“We’ve preached on two-strike hitting, going to battle, being a tough out,” McNabb said. “Grady does a good job of that.”
That was plenty of support for Gates. But he got great glove work behind him from Gilbert (a fantastic sliding catch in center) and Dalton (another grass-stain catch near the right-field line) in the outfield, and leaping snags by Jett Alvey (shortstop) and Grayson Gillespie (third base) to turn line drives into loud outs. Other than that, Gates played pitch-and-catch with first-time starting catcher Riley Sons.
”It was his night,” McNabb said. “Once he started cruising, I wasn’t going to take the ball from him. They got into a groove together and started clicking.
”Moving Cam to the top of the order (the last two games), we talked about where he was comfortable. He likes the top, and he’s such a key piece of our offense. Some others are coming. We will see other guys break out. The best is yet to come.”
“It’s a huge win,” Gates said. “Nothing is better than beating Seymour. It’s a great feeling.”
The Stars (5-4) will visit Jeffersonville, another potential Hoosier Hills Conference tournament and sectional obstacle, on Friday.
