Andrean coach Dave Pishkur was concerned about his pitching depth.
Pishkur’s line all season was that he had just one Class 4A pitcher.
On Saturday, Pishkur’s suspicion about his team proved prophetic in a 9-5 loss to Penn in the Class 4A LaPorte Regional championship game.
The 59ers’ best pitcher, Mikey Doolin, pitched Andrean to a 6-4 semifinal victory over LaPorte earlier in the day.
In a best-case scenario, Pishkur wanted to get a couple of scoreless innings each out of three pitchers in the final.
Pishkur reached deep into his well of pitchers, but the 59ers couldn’t muster up the scoreless part.
Clay Thompson, Sawyer Allen, Billy Johnson and Kevin McCune all pitched. No one could stop the Kingsmen, who will play Zionsville next Saturday in a semistate at Kokomo or Plymouth.
Penn (24-5) pounded out 11 hits, driving Thompson out of the game after just two innings.
McCune said the Kingsmen are a cut above the Indiana teams Andrean faced.
“They were the best we faced all year,” McCune said.
Pishkur figured the 59ers (26-7) had to play a near-perfect game to win. He was hoping, though, the Penn bats would take a rest.
“If you would have told me we’d have scored five runs, I’d say I like our chances,” he said. “They can really hit it though.”
Penn jumped ahead first, scoring two runs in the third inning on two singles.
Both runs were unearned after third basemen Adam Bednarek let a grounder slip through his legs, allowing both runners to score.
Andrean answered with four runs in the third, taking a 4-2 lead.
The big hit in the inning was a single by Doolin that drove in two runs.
The Andrean pitchers just couldn’t contain the Penn bats. In the fifth, Penn answered with five hits and five runs off Allen.
Pishkur brought in Johnson before the inning was over, but it was too late.
The Kingsmen, who lost 14-11 to Andrean in a regular-season game, were just too dialed in at the plate.
“Every time we made some type of mistake, we seemed to compound it,” Pishkur said. “Hats off to them. They have a nice ball club. They can swing it.”
McCune, who hadn’t thrown all year, pitched the last 1 2/3 innings.
The senior said he had battled tendinitis in his shoulder. But he was desperate to help the 59ers in a pinch so he took the ball.
If he had been healthy, McCune likely would’ve started the game.
“I wanted the ball,” he said. “If we had a chance, I wanted to be on the mound.”
It was a good run for McCune, a Munster resident who will play at Purdue Northwest next year.
He won two Class 3A state titles and he helped the 59ers get their first Class 4A sectional title.
“It was fun,” he said. “I couldn’t have done this if I was at Munster.”
Pishkur was proud of his team.
“They had a nice run,” he said. “This team went as far as it could go.”
Twitter @MikeHuttonPT
