Indians rout Notre Dame in Sauer’s return

The wind was cold but the bats of the Indians were on fire as 16 runs on seven hits put the Bulldogs away early. Jackson (8-2) defeated Notre Dame (5-4) in four innings by a score of 16-1 and improved their SEMO Conference record to 2-0.

Drew Parsons and Lance Wilson led the Indians, both players had three RBIs and reached base on every at-bat. Parsons had a base-clearing triple in the bottom of the first to bring the Jackson lead to 5-0 after a walk and catcher interference scored the first two runs.

In the second, Wilson hit a single to right and brought in Owen Osborne and Jaiden Glency to extend the Jackson lead to 9-0. The remainder of the Indians' runs came from two Garrison Brown RBIs, and RBIs from Glency, Osborne, Peyton Kight and Caleb Nenninger.

Indians head coach Josh Roach said while the bats were clearly hot, each of the Jackson pitchers had a great day as well.

“It was a big day for us, John Paul Sauer started his first game of the year after coming back from an ACL tear back in August during football season. It was really good to have him back and he obviously threw the ball well,” Roach said. “Ben Dambach who's also recovering from injury, it was his first time on the mound this season. He and Brynson Garcia did exactly what we asked of them to throw a lot of strikes. Let your defense help you out when you need them to and be efficient with our pitch counts.”

Sauer was awarded the win and the three Jackson pitchers combined for eight strikeouts, one walk and just one run on three hits.

The Indians will take on Vianney on Wednesday at home beginning at 4:30 p.m. Roach said the team has been working hard in practice and they are excited to play tomorrow, even with no rest.

“Well actually with these guys, the more we play the better they seem to be, we don't do well with a lot of time off. They're working hard and because we're off to spring break we’ve had time to work on some things,” Roach said. “They'll be ready for tomorrow, it’s gonna be a good game. Obviously, Vianney is a really good program, I anticipate it's probably gonna be a low-scoring game that’s gonna come down to the wire.”