CINCINNATI — Brendon Rowe didn’t think much about hitting the mound to face a rival on a hot streak.
The Carlisle High School senior pitcher was zoned in Monday night.
Rowe gave up just one run in a complete-game four-hitter, and the Indians halted the Madison Mohawks’ eight-game winning streak with a 7-1 Southwestern Buckeye League Buckeye Division victory as part of the Reds Futures High School Showcase at the Reds Urban Youth Academy.
“The main focus for me was to come in and throw strikes,” said Rowe, who had six strikeouts. “If I could get groundballs, that was basically the plan.
“Our offense gave me a little more comfortability on the mound. I knew my team had my back, so I just kept doing what I was doing.”
The Indians scored three runs in the first two innings and four runs in the final two innings. They’re now 8-1 against the Mohawks since the 2021 season.
“I think we’re starting to come together. We’re starting to come around,” Rowe said. “We’re starting to play Carlisle baseball the right way. I think tonight is a step in the right direction.
“We said before the game that this was the start of a new season. So technically we’re 1-0 in our new season right now.”
Carlisle (4-7, 2-3 SWBL Buckeye) had lost six of its last seven — including two straight — heading into Monday.
“We needed this,” Indians coach Chris Hawkins said. “We haven’t been swinging the bats well all year. We’re the most threatening team on Earth. That’s all we’ve done all year is we’ve threatened people. We go four straight innings against Valley View the other day to open the game with a strikeout looking to end each inning. We had a total of nine left on base. They’re just not confident in swinging it. But they came out tonight. The bats are warming up with the weather, so maybe that’s what it was.
“There was just a little better approach at the plate,” Hawkins added. “They’re starting to see the ball a little bit better, and that’s contagious when you see somebody put the bat on the ball and hit it hard. We swung it better. That was the big thing.
“We’ve played decent defense all year. When Rowe’s on the mound, we expect to be in games and compete — and he was good tonight.”
Carlisle handed Madison (9-2, 4-1 SWBL Buckeye) its first conference loss of the season. They’ll meet again on April 28 at Carlisle’s Sam Franks Field.
“We needed to play in a big game. Big games are always fun,” Hawkins said. “We needed to win a big game. We needed to play against a rival. We needed to play the team that’s leading the conference. We needed to play a game that matters so you can lock in and concentrate a bit more. Our guys showed up and did that tonight.”
Carlisle junior Nate Rust went 2-for-4 with four RBIs and was named the Showcase’s Most Valuable Player. Junior Cody Svarda went 2-for-4 with two runs, while senior Cooper Steckel and junior Clayton Jewell each collected two hits for the Indians.
Junior Caden Johnson was 2-for-3 with an RBI for Madison. Seniors Devin Lindsey and Carter Young added the other two hits.
Madison senior Conner Robertson pitched 5.1 innings, giving up six runs on nine hits before handing the ball over to relievers Grady Webb and Owen King.
“All credit to Carlisle. That’s baseball,” Mohawks coach Ryan Gross said. “Rowe threw the heck out of it. They’re well-coached. You know when you make mistakes, they’re going to capitalize on them. So, all credit to them. They’re a good baseball team.
“This was so uncharacteristic of the things that we do and the type of baseball that we want to play. Hopefully we won’t take a lot out of this one. We will clap our hands for Carlisle with how well they played and how well they executed. We’ll just try to be better for Wednesday when we play Waynesville. We’ll just get back to rowing the boat. Nothing too much, nothing too little. We’ve just got to stay even-keeled. We didn’t think we’d go undefeated in the league, so we’ll just try to be competitive on Wednesday.”
Carlisle faces Alter at 6 p.m. at Wright State on Tuesday and hosts Brookville at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Madison hosts Waynesville at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
“They’re a baseball team that really likes each other. They bought into the style that we want to play, and they really like being around each other,” Gross said of his team. “We did some stuff that was not characteristic of us. We do some things that are much more fun and much more up-tempo brand of baseball. And for whatever reason today, it just wasn’t our day. I’m going to beat them up too bad. They’ve been as good as it gets as far as a team goes to coach. They’ve been awesome. You’ve got to keep them from coming to work. You’ve got to keep them out of the catch. They want extra time.
“We just lost a baseball game. We’ll probably lose another one this year. But hopefully we win some between the next one and this one.”
