Van-Far couldn’t afford to make many mistakes on Thursday at Community R-6.

Van-Far vs Community R-6 Photo Gallery

The Indians lost 4-0 at their Audrain County rival despite Reece Culwell’s six innings of six innings with 11 strikeouts, eight hits and no walks. They made several defensive miscues that preceded Community runs and couldn’t answer against all-stater Mason Carroll.

Carroll pitched seven innings with seven hits, six strikeouts, and one walk, escaping two second-and-third-base situations in the early innings and outdueling Reece Culwell’s six innings with 11 strikeouts, eight hits and no walks. In the first inning, he lunged toward third base to make a catch before completing a double play at third base and rushed to the plate in the fourth inning to tag out Tyson Douglas.

“The kid’s a beast,” head coach Cameron Huff said. “He’s an all-stater for sure. We’ve hit the ball solid all year, and he just mowed us down tonight. Shoutout to coach (Joel) Krato for working with Mason as much as he does and Mason’s dad, Brandon. That family eats, sleeps and breathes baseball.”

Huff was well-aware of the scouting report for Carroll after following the Trojans (5-2) last season during their state Final Four run, and it mainly said to execute and avoid mistakes. He said Carroll only walked less than a handful of batters and threw many first-pitch strikes.

“We have to attack early, and we didn’t do that,” Huff said. “We took, took, took until we had two strikes and then we started trying to foul stuff off. We can’t do that on a pitcher like that.”

Van-Far (4-4) was in a hole early after allowing a run in the first inning via an error on a bunt play. Carroll’s fly ball with two outs wasn’t caught in the third inning, allowing a run to score and eventually another to cross on a hit later in the inning. The Indians committed another throwing error toward first base in the sixth inning to move the Community runner along before it scored on an infield hit.

Huff said while Van-Far didn’t take advantage of its few scoring opportunities against Carroll, he knows Krato teaches Community to be aggressive whenever it has baserunners. That was apparent when Huff played for Wellsville-Middletown a few years ago.

“I played against coach Krato since he coached over here when I was in high school,” Huff said. “I know how he plays baseball so I told the boys, ‘If they get a runner on with less than two outs, they’re going to bunt.’ We have to execute. In the first inning, they had a guy on first with not outs, second guy in the batting order bunted, the third baseman hesitates and throws it in the outfield, and they score a run.”

Huff said Culwell did well, especially considering the unearned runs that were scored against him, and it was definitely good enough for a win or at least to send the game to extra innings scoreless. 

“He did what Reece does — throw strikes and live low in the zone,” Huff said. “Luckily, we had an umpire that likes low strikes.”

Van-Far played to a 500 record through eight games, but its four wins are more than any season in the past four years. 

“Taking punches early is better than taking punches late in the season,” Huff said. “I’d rather stumble and fix out our kinks now than come May.”