Carroll County Comet

Popular Categories

Carroll sweeps Tri-Central with back-to-back shutouts




Carroll’s Will Eldridge blasts a homer to left field against Tri-Central. Bill Stauffer photo

Carroll’s Will Eldridge blasts a homer to left field against Tri-Central. Bill Stauffer photo

No. 1 in Class 2A Carroll blew past Tri-Central last week in a Hoosier Heartland Conference matchup that put the Cougars on the winning side of 18-0 and 12-0 victories.

For Coach Camden Parkhurst and the Cougars, the defense combined with Carroll’s pitching staff paved the way for consecutive wins against Tri-Central.

“I thought defensively and our pitching staff, we did an outstanding job in that series,” Parkhurst said. “We used a handful of pitchers. It was a combined effort. I thought our young guys played well. We kind of set some team metrics for that series and we were able to meet those.”

Carroll’s success over the Trojans came with their pitching staff throwing no-hitters in both games as the arms of Owen Duff, Eli Harshbarger and Trent Metzger all played roles in the Cougars’ wins.

Metzger and Harshbarger combined for 10 strikeouts in game two.

As a way to continue to improve before the postseason, Carroll often sets goals within its games that stand aside from stacking more wins onto their undefeated record.

“This is a veteran group who kind of understands. We talk a lot about playing against the game and we set some team metrics for us and we do that off and on in different games anyways. Just some benchmarks that we want to hit and we feel like we gotta do that to be successful no matter who our opponent is,” Parkhurst said.

Game one began with two runs in the first inning of play before the Cougars exploded for 12 runs in the fourth inning, obliterating the Trojans and shutting the door on any Tri-Central comeback as Carroll added another win to its unblemished Hoosier Heartland Conference record.

Both wins over the week moved Carroll to 15-0 with chances against Taylor High School to continue rounding into a threatening post season form.

Tanner Turnpaugh and Duff led the way for Carroll from the mound in game one with four and strikeouts each while Duff also notched three runs batted in followed by Harshbarger who finished the game threefor three in the batter’s box along with one RBI.

Five runs in the second and fourth innings each paved the way for Carroll’s second victory against Tri- Central with a final of 12-0 while the Cougars achieved their third shutout of the season.

Will Eldridge led the Cougars’ offense with three RBIs followed by two each from Turnpaugh and Duff.