BASEBALL: Pearson blanks Zebras but Berries lose Russell to injury

May 10—It was a night of excitement and a night of sadness all at the same time for the Logansport baseball team.

The good news was Dylan Pearson returned to form and arguably threw a no-hitter in a 2-0 win over Rochester Thursday night at Jim Turner Field. It's the kind of form that gives the Berries (11-13) a chance to win their Class 4A sectional title at Lafayette.

But at the same time three-sport standout Isaac Russell likely played the final game of his high school career after he reaggravated a hamstring injury that had been hampering him all season.

Pearson was credited with a one-hit shutout. He walked two and struck out six.

The Zebras (12-8) had two possible hits that could have been ruled errors. They didn't have a single ball leave the infield the entire game.

Brady Beck led off the third with a dribbler down the third base line that Pearson hesitated and was going to try to let go foul. But he said there was no spin on the ball and he picked it up and threw to first but not in time to get Beck.

The other possible hit was later in the inning with a runner on and two outs. Brady Coleman hit a slow roller to the hole at short that Russell fielded and threw on to first. His throw was offline and first baseman Carson Dubes tried to tag Coleman but he was called safe.

Frye said it was the latter play that was ruled a hit.

"The ball was going to be there on time. I think it was a tough play," Frye said. "I don't think it's wrong either way you score it. As it comes out he gives up the one-hitter and if you can go back in time you might score it an error just so he gets a no-hitter. He's well deserving of anything today. They hit a few balls hard and we made some plays. Dylan threw the ball excellent tonight. He was in command the whole night."

Pearson got out of the inning by getting a groundout to second.

The biggest jam Pearson faced was in the seventh which started with a walk and hit by pitch to start the inning. Gavin Young followed with a sac bunt to put the tying run in scoring position. Colton Ferverda then hit a liner to third that Jace Smith caught and stepped on the bag to end the game.

Pearson (3-2) opened the season with a one-hit shutout of Lafayette Jeff but ran into some difficulties later on with walks. He walked six in a loss to Benton Central and walked seven in what was eventually a win over Anderson. He was better in his last start against Penn with three walks but still took a loss. But he threw more strikes and shut out Rochester with an efficient 80 pitches on Thursday.

"I'm getting back into the groove I feel like," he said. "It feels great to be able to just sit there and know that I'm able to throw a ball in the zone. I was struggling earlier, a lot with confidence too."

The Goshen recruit can hit 90 mph on the radar gun. He lowered his ERA from 5.44 to 4.36 with his shutout win.

"I was just trying to do anything I can to break out of that slump," he said. "I got myself some new cleats, the last two starts I did better and I'll blame it on the cleats and they helped me."

Senior catcher Jake Fincher has had a first-hand look of Pearson's pitches. Pearson had six outs via strikeouts and 10 on ground outs. He also picked off a pair of runners to go with a pair of lineouts.

"I've never really seen Dylan pitch to contact but he did a few innings which was really nice," Fincher said. "I think he threw like a six-pitch inning the second or third inning. It was really good. Then when he wasn't pitching to contact he was striking guys out. It was really nice. It's a big different midseason to now, it's a big difference."

The Berries scratched out a pair of runs against Rochester sophomore Carson Paulik, who is the Zebras' No. 2 pitcher behind junior Tanner Reinartz

The Berries broke through in the fourth with a run. Deagan Kitchel led off with an infield single, followed by an infield single by Cooper Smith. Both runners moved up a base on a wild pitch. Fincher hit an RBI sac fly to left with one out for the first run of the game.

The Berries added another run in the fifth. Micah Rogers led off with a single. He was bunted to second by Jace Smith. Bryson Herr followed with a single to put runners on the corners. Herr stole second. Kitchel hit a grounder to the shortstop, who threw home but Rogers was able to slide under the tag to make it 2-0.

Paulik allowed two runs on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts.

Herr went 2-for-3. Kitchel, Fincher, Rogers, Dubes and Cooper Smith each added a hit.

Russell's injury occurred in the third when he was trying to leg out a ground ball to the hole in short. He reinjured his hamstring and went down in a heap of pain after crossing first.

"We're so heartbroken and saddened for him today. There's no doubt in my mind that we've lost him for the remainder of the season," Frye said.

There's less than two weeks left in the regular season. The Berries open sectional play against Kokomo on May 22 at Loeb Stadium in Lafayette. After Russell left the game Thursday, Cooper Smith moved over to shortstop and Jace Smith entered at third base.

Russell has been a mainstay on All-Loganland teams in football, basketball and baseball. His best sport is baseball. He's coming off a junior season when he hit .388 with 14 extra base hits, 16 RBIs and 35 RBIs.

But he's been hampered this season by his injury, which first occurred the third game of the season on April 2. He missed two weeks and came back for the Kokomo game. He played for two weeks up until the Anderson game but had missed the previous four games leading into the Rochester game. He was limited to 27 at-bats this year and hit .296 in eight games.

"He played a few games and he couldn't go full speed or maybe had some hesitancy," Frye said. "So we decided late that we were going to sit him until we could get him back to 100%. We didn't want to play him, we wanted him to get healthy. The first at-bat he kind of gingerly ran down to first. He's been feeling well and in the second at-bat he tried to turn his jets on and it happened again."

Frye was emotional when talking about Russell. He added his baseball career can continue at the next level if he wants.

"Hopefully he can get back and have a quality summer and have some choices. It's taken the better part of a month and a half now and we have until the end of May and he'll continue with his treatments. At this point I hope he can get healthy for summer baseball and go have a good summer and get a choice of where he wants to go play. He can play college baseball, it's a matter of whether he wants to play and whether he wants to put his heart into it in terms of the time and effort of somebody like him does. Right now he is completely distraught and the young man just wants to play. Unfortunately there's many athletes that have been through it and it's a tough one. He means so much to us at the top of the lineup and running the bases and playing shortstop that it's a hard one to swallow."

Fincher said Russell will be missed on the field.

"That's a big loss for sure but he'll still be in the dugout which is the important thing," he said. "He might be struggling a lot with it. If I was hurt during swim season and lost that I would have been pretty messed up about it and this is his swim. So it's important just to be there for him and he knows he has us."