Olentangy tops BW 5-2 in OCC Cap opener

The Braves dusted off their “lit­tle ball” attack

Olen­tangy scored three runs over the final two innings to break a 2–2 tie and post a 5–2 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vic­tory over host Big Wal­nut in the con­fer­ence opener for both teams Mon­day evening in Sunbury.

After the Braves took a 3–2 lead in the top of the sixth on back-to-back dou­bles off the bats of sopho­more des­ig­nated hit­ter Joe McGuin­ness and start­ing pitcher Jacob Kay­lor, they came back with two runs in the top of the sev­enth on two sin­gles, an error and two per­fectly exe­cuted bunts.

Senior catcher Luke Hart­line led off the inning by a draw­ing a walk off Golden Eagle starter Cole Harbin. After Hart­line stole sec­ond, sopho­more sec­ond base­man Drew Batt sac­ri­ficed him to third and Hart­line came home on senior first base­man Chris­t­ian Brett’s sin­gle over short­stop Nick Moser’s glove with Brett advanc­ing to third on the throw home. Senior short­stop Grif­fin Bink­ley plated Brett with a squeeze bunt for the 5–2 lead.

Lady Braves play long ball, top BW softball 13-4

The home run is a great equal­izer, but three of them usu­ally mean you’re going to dom­i­nate. That was cer­tainly the case on Mon­day, as the Olen­tangy soft­ball team used three long balls to help rein­vig­o­rate its offense en route to a 13–4 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion win over Big Wal­nut which suf­fered its first loss of the sea­son at Big Wal­nut High School.

Olen­tangy (3–5, 1–0 OCC Cap­i­tal) also added 10 sin­gles to the cause and had plenty of suc­cess dri­ving run­ners home. The Braves went 9 of 21 from the plate when a team­mate or team­mates were on base, while Big Wal­nut (3–1, 0–1) went 3 of 11 with run­ners on.

District 11 All-Star games, HOF inductions tonight at Granville High School

Big Walnut’s Adam Sha­heen is one of eight Delaware County play­ers selected to play for the North Squad against the South Squad in tonight’s Dis­trict 11 All-Star game at Granville High School. Join­ing Sha­heen are Delaware Hayes’ Grif­fin Kin­ney, Delaware Christian’s Pete Kerins, Olentangy’s Seth Clark, Olen­tangy Liberty’s Nick Nos­saman and Alex Rad­kiewicz, Buck­eye Valley’s Jor­dan Tom­lin­son and Olen­tangy Orange’s Nick Deitsch also earned spots on the North’s ros­ter. The game is sched­uled for 7:45 p.m.

Five lettermen return to lead Golden Eagle baseball

Big Wal­nut, com­ing off its best sea­son that saw a vet­eran Golden Eagle nine cap­ture their first con­fer­ence cham­pi­onship in 39 sea­sons with a 12–2 mark in the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion, shat­ter the school record for wins in a sea­son with 23 and reach the Divi­sion II Cen­tral Dis­trict Finals under second-year head coach Chris Holly.

With the grad­u­a­tion of eight seniors, includ­ing five All-OCC selec­tions, two All-Ohio picks and four Divi­sion II All-Central Dis­trict choices, where do Holly and the Golden Eagles stand enter­ing the 2013 sea­son in their bid to defend their Cap­i­tal Divi­sion pennant?

Five let­ter­men return from last season’s 23–6 (.793) squad led by senior two-year let­ter win­ner Jay Hol­land (third base) and four first-year let­ter­win­ners in senior Cole Harbin (pitcher/shortstop), senior Max McLean (outfield/pitcher), junior Jeremy Bok (first baseman-outfielder) and junior Kyle Dun­can (catcher/pitcher). Harbin earned Sec­ond Team All-OCC and Bok Spe­cial Men­tion All-OCC recognition.

BW softball looks to experience in ’13

Big Wal­nut returns 10 let­ter win­ners off last season’s young squad that pro­duced an 18–11 over­all record and tied for third in the com­pet­i­tive Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion with a 7–7 record last season.

Seventh-year head coach Jeff Hat­field, who has com­piled a 6-year record of 98–68, .590 record on the Golden Eagle bench, looks to that expe­ri­ence along with good team speed and chem­istry to equate to suc­cess on the field.

“With 10 return­ing let­ter win­ners, we are deep in expe­ri­ence com­pared to the start of last sea­son,” Hat­field said. “Add over­all good team speed with our chem­istry and we are excited about the upcom­ing season.”

Golden Eagles boys track team excited to compete in 2013

From the “Year of The Senior” in 2012 when Big Wal­nut posted 60–33 record en route to top 10 fin­ishes in the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion and the Divi­sion I Cen­tral Dis­trict Cham­pi­onship, Eric Myers’ youth­ful Golden Eagles are excited and eager to com­pete in 2013.

While Golden Eagles grad­u­ated 10 seniors off last season’s squad that placed sixth in the OCC Cap­i­tal and eighth in the they Dis­trict, they return 14 let­ter men, includ­ing six seniors, three juniors and five sopho­mores to go with 14 new­com­ers to lead Myers’ sixth sea­son as head coach.

Golden Eagle seniors take spotlight in girls basketball

It was a night for seniors Emily Chucta, Stephanie Adkins and Saman­tha Klinedinst who swept three of the top five awards at the Big Wal­nut Girls Bas­ket­ball Awards Ban­quet held Wednes­day, March 13, in the BWHS Band Room.

Junior Sky­lar Fleak, who was rec­og­nized as the Golden Eagles’ Most Valu­able Player for the 2012–13 cam­paign, led the post­sea­son pre­sen­ta­tions from head coach Bob Scott. In turn, Chucta received the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award, Adkins the Out­stand­ing Defen­sive Player Award and Klinedinst the Coaches Award. Junior Sara Petty com­pleted the pre­sen­ta­tions as the season’s Most Improved Player.

Ben Stefaniak, Marsch take top boys swimming awards

Senior Ben­jamin Ste­fa­niak, the recip­i­ent of the cov­eted Golden Eagle Award, and junior Carter Marsch, who earned the High Point Award, cap­tured the two top awards for the 2012–13 Big Wal­nut Boys Swim­ming sea­son at the season-ending awards ban­quet held March 13 at the high school.

Join­ing Ste­fa­niak and Marsch on the podium were two fresh­man, Bret Stacy who was pre­sented with the Most Improved Swim­mer Award and Michael Stan­wick who received the Coaches Award.