BLOOMINGTON — Xavier Hemingway made sure there were fireworks by defusing Bloomington North.
The sixth ranked Bloomington South baseball team has picked up a tradition of setting off a celebratory boomer after each win this season, and for the 11th time in 12 games, the sky was lit up after a big crowd had left for home.
The senior was in complete control after a shaky first inning, tossing a two-hitter and striking out 12 in a 2-0 rivalry game win over the Cougars at Groh Field on Tuesday, April 28.
“The first inning is when I dealt with the most amount of base runners,” Hemingway said. “And then from there, it was just sort of settling in.
“I didn’t have control of my fastball the first inning and then it became my dominant pitch.”
He struck out five of the last six batters to not give the Cougars even a sniff of hope.
“I found out they were sitting fastball,” Hemingway said. “I was kind of working backwards and I’d start them off, just hang a curveball. They weren’t swinging. Then I finished them in the fastball.
“Usually I go breaking pitch to finish them off, but I was able to get the fastball by them. I don’t know what I was doing differently with that, but it worked.”
It cooled down a North team that put up 29 runs in a Saturday twin-bill at Hagerstown.
“He’s unpredictable as a pitcher,” South coach Phil Kluesner said. “Heck, he’s unpredictable to me sometimes. I think that makes him effective as a pitcher, and I saw that tonight with those guys.
“They’ve been hot at the plate, and they were just kind of guessing there for a while. I thought the umpire’s strike zone was tight for both guys but he’s still able to mix those pitches up.”
Hemingway, after showing promise as a sophomore, pitched limited innings last year, mostly in relief, after an injury. The Marian University recruit has stormed back, coming in 3-0 with an 0.82 ERA in four starts over 17 innings with 26 strikeouts and just two walks.
“He takes his craft seriously,” Kluesner said. “The things he does behind the scenes is pretty impressive for a kid that age. It’s just his preparation there.”
That’s big considering the injury bug that hit some other teammates this year, including IU recruit Collin Marcum. Patience was big in the recovery process.
“We’ve been kind of injury riddled,” Hemingway, who also had an offseason injury to work through. “Luckily, I was able to get back, but some of my teammates were not so lucky. But they’re working back.
“For how good we are right now, we’re only getting better.”
Game lived up to the billing
The score has been especially tight and runs hard to come by over the past few meetings between crosstown rivals: 2-1 North in last year’s sectional, 3-0 South in nine innings; 4-3 South in 2024.
This one was no different, befitting a game with a dozen future college players in it. It was a pitching duel once again featuring North’s Luke Freel, who went six innings, scattered seven hits and just one walk while fanning eight.
But two wild pitches and a passed ball helped tilt the scale just enough in the Panthers’ favor.
“He’s going to get better,” North coach Richard Hurt said. “I’m not worried about him. He pitches in all our big games.”
Hemingway also did a good job of not allowing North’s leadoff batter to reach all night. That made it hard for the Cougars to cause much havoc bunting or stealing bases.
“Whenever North’s around, we know it’s going to be a good one,” Hemingway said. “We only won 2-0, for as much as we seemed in control, that was still a close game. Just two mistakes. If I leave one hanging, tie ballgame, so I had to stay focused the entire ballgame.”
Scratching out two runs
Freel never gives up runs easily, especially not to South, which scored once in 15 innings against him.
But South (11-1, 2-1) got to him in the third. Reid Walker walked and went to second on Luke Arnett’s single and stole third before Connor Couch sent a bouncer just right of the mound. Freel got a glove on it, recovered and threw out Couch, but Walker scored easily.
The Panthers made it 2-0 in the fourth after a Jake McCammon single to center. Courtesy runner Collin Marcum scooted to second and then third on wild pitches. Then after Freel fanned the next two batters, Blake Azcui delivered an RBI single.
Just a few mistakes, but they were costly as North (9-2, 3-1) never got its bats going.
“I like the fact we’re both good,” Kluesner said. “(Freel) is just something different. He’s a competitor. It’s fun that way.”
Moving ahead, the Cougars, their eight-game win streak over, must beat Southport (0-1) on May 12 to secure a share of the CI title. South has Southport and Columbus North (0-1) left. Terre Haute North (1-1) is also still in it.
“We put ourselves in a position we can still win conference, we might have to tie, but we worked hard to get here,” Hurt said. “Problem is we didn’t play well enough to win tonight. You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be better than we were tonight.”
BLOOMINGTON SOUTH 2, BLOOMINGTON NORTH 0
Bloomington North (9-2, 3-1) 000 | 000 | 0 — 0 | 2 | 1
Bloomington South (11-1, 2-1) 001 | 100 | x — 2 | 7 | 0
Xavier Hemingway and Jake McCammon. Luke Freel and Briar Anderson. W: Hemingway (4-0). L: Freel (1-1).
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Sparks fly as Bloomington South baseball shuts out rival North
Reporting by Jim Gordillo, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
