YORKTOWN — In the top of the fifth inning of the Delaware County Baseball Championship, Delta turned to senior relief pitcher Maddox Huffman.
It’s a position Huffman has grown accustomed to over the years. As a sophomore, he pitched the last two innings of Delta’s 5-2 win over Yorktown in the 2024 county title game. Then last year, the IU-Kokomo commit pitched the final inning of a 10-0 shutout of the Tigers as the Eagles clinched back-to-back county championships.
This game, though, was the closest one Huffman has seen in his county tournament career. Delta held a 1-0 lead over Yorktown in the top of the fifth but only had one out with two Tiger runners on. The Eagles got out of the jam, and Huffman struck out four in the last two innings — including the final two outs of the game — to complete the shutout and give Delta a 1-0 victory over their archrival to clinch a third consecutive Delaware County Championship on Saturday, May 16.
“Anytime you’re going in to do anything, you’ve got to believe that you’re the best in that moment,” Huffman said. “You’re the one that can go in there and shut things down. That’s just what you’ve got to do in those times.”
Huffman earned the save on the mound, while junior pitcher Kye Berger earned the win for his starting effort. Berger struck out three while surrendering three hits and one walk in 4⅓ innings of work.
“Kye and Maddox are two of the most competitive guys we’ve got,” Delta coach Jacob Van Pelt said. “Just the fight, keeping at it and making plays. (Yorktown) hit some balls hard, they hit some balls that easily, if we don’t make the play, they’re singles and it’s a different ball game. It was awesome to see, defense came to play, pitchers pounded it, we had competitive at-bats, just couldn’t scratch anymore.
“But when your defense and your pitching is like that, you can win a game 1-0.”
Delta’s ultimate difference maker was senior shortstop Everrett Linn. He was responsible for the lone run of the game, driving Berger home from second with an RBI-single in the top of the third inning. In the bottom of that same inning, Yorktown managed two hits to put runners at the corners with one out, but Linn neutralized the threat by making a diving play for a ground ball, tagging second and making the throw to first just in time for a double play.
“I’ll tell you what — the entire game, my legs were Jell-O,” Linn said. “Honestly, it was a team aspect. I mean, the energy in the dugout was insane. All the people around here, they push the players. I’m just really happy about the guys pulling through.”
Not only did the play get the Eagles out of a precarious spot, but it got their dugout more fired up than any moment except for the postgame trophy celebration.
“It was big,” Linn said. “I didn’t realize it at the time. I’m just trying to do my job, and it just so happened to be me. I don’t think too much about it.”
There’s not much to think about when you put in the level of work that Linn does. His dedication to his craft paid off in him being the deciding factor in a historic victory, clinching Delta’s first baseball county championship three-peat in school history.
“That means the world,” Van Pelt said. “I tell our guys all the time, Everrett is what I want our ball team to be about. He never leaves practice without a dirty uniform. It’s always dirty, he’s diving around making plays, whether it’s just routine batting practices, he’s all over the place and his uniform is covered in dirt every single practice.
“To see the reward of that, the big knock, and then playing some defense out there, making some awesome plays — he’s a ball player, man, he just loves playing baseball, and I respect the heck out of him.”
Delta got the win despite another great outing from Yorktown junior Isaac Whitt on the mound. Coming off a strong performance in the Tigers’ no-hitter against Wes-Del in Tuesday’s first-round game, Whitt pitched all seven innings and gave up just three hits and one walk with 11 strikeouts — a new season-high.
“He just pounds the zone for us,” Yorktown coach Austin Stout said. “He has the ability to land his breaking ball, which makes an 82-83 fastball look like 84-85 sometimes. He goes out there, competes, he’s sturdy for us, and we’re really excited about him going down the stretch.”
Yorktown couldn’t provide Whitt with any run support despite some solid contact at the plate throughout the game. The ball just always seemed to find the glove of a Delta outfielder.
“We hit the ball well, I mean, we hit a lot of balls right at them,” Stout said. “We hit one on the wall with the kids playing about two feet from the warning track, Kaden (Crumes) in the first inning hits one hard down the line, and we just hit baseballs right at them. I was excited about how our guys compete. It’s obviously always tough when you lose your county tournament and to your county rival, but we’re getting better, for sure.”
While the Tigers will use the loss as fuel for a strong finish, the Eagles will look to maintain the momentum gained from their county three-peat. Delta is now 3-0 against Yorktown on the season, but the two could potentially face off for a fourth time in a sectional championship.
“I’ve been telling these guys, and we’ve been telling these guys as a coaching staff, that we’re a good ball team,” Van Pelt said. “We’ve had some games where we just don’t show up, we’ve made some mistakes, and it just gets out of hand. Look at our record, some of those final scores, they’re kind of eye-opening, but we’ve been telling these guys that they’re a really good ball team. If you do the things you need to do, if you play clean and you get some studs on the mound that compete, you’re going to win a lot of games.
“To their credit, they fight, they’re grinding out practices, they just keep getting better and better every day, and that’s all you can ask for.”
Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@usatodayco.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Delta tops Yorktown to clinch Delaware County Baseball Tournament three-peat
Reporting by Cade Hampton, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
