“It feels great. I haven’t thrown one of those before, so it was awesome to get one,” said Johnson, a sophomore who didn’t think the abbreviated game did anything to dull his achievement on the mound.
Johnson allowed just three base runners, including a pair of walks in the second inning and a harmless lead-off error in the fifth. His outing — and the game — ended when center fielder Bailey West ranged back to get pinch hitter Kyle Romero’s deep fly in front of the fence.
“That scared me a little bit,” Johnson said. “I knew we had it.”
Johnson said the Vikings (8-5) weren’t scared coming into the game against a Red Eddies (12-1) team that was tied for first in Class A North. It showed from the start.
Hunter LaBossiere led off the game with a single, then later scored thanks to an EL fielding error to make it 1-0 after one inning.
An inning later LaBossiere reached on another error, which came after Tyler Curtis started the frame with a single and Brayden Bean reached on an yet another error. Two more singles and a run-scoring fielder’s choice made it a four-run frame and a 5-0 lead for the Vikings heading into the bottom of the second.
Johnson showed a sign of weakness for the one and only time in the game. Drew Lashua and Brandon Varney walked back-to-back to lead off the inning. But they never made it any farther. Johnson recorded one of his three strikeouts, then a pop-up to the catcher and a fly-out to right ended the Red Eddies’ only threat.
“Looking back at it, I guess it was a real big inning,” EL coach Dave Jordan said of the second. “It would be nice if we could have moved runners along and got some in. (Johnson) did a great job of making pitches, and the balls found gloves. Credit them for shutting us down.”
Jordan said his team this year isn’t used to getting down big early. Oxford Hills coach Shane Slicer said his up-and-down club usually gains confidence from early leads.
That was certainly the case Friday. The Vikings offense never slowed down, scoring in all five innings. A sacrifice bunt in the third drove in two runs thanks to some heads-up baserunning, then the Vikings knocked out EL starter Varney in the fourth with a pair of singles. CJ Jipson came in and got a second out, but a walk loaded the bases and an error brought in two runs. Finally a play at the plate — with Varney now catching — on a double steal brought the damage to an end.
Another single by LaBossiere and another error drove in the last run in the fifth against Ben Harris.
“We executed everything that we wanted to offensively,” Slicer said. “Suicide, hit-and-runs, everything that we wanted to they were great at.”
The Red Eddies committed five errors leading to eight unearned runs.
“We just didn’t make plays today. And they forced us into a lot of plays,” Jordan said. “We just weren’t able to stop the bleeding when it got going, and they capitalized.
“Baseball’s a funny game. Balls fall in, balls find gloves, and today we weren’t on the winning side of that. But they created a lot of those opportunities.”
Oxford Hills got two hits each from LaBossiere, Matt Smith, Jake Spinhirn and Tyler Curtis, and collected 12 total as a team.
“That helped me out a lot,” Johnson said of the run support. “That gave me more confidence to go out there and pitch.”
Johnson’s first career no-hitter came after Blake Slicer threw one last week. Slicer pitched in a 3-0 loss to Lawrence on Wednesday.
“We had a tough week, we really did,” Shane Slicer said. “We threw our ace on Wednesday and we didn’t play well. We took a gamble that we needed that win more than we needed this one.
“Anything can happen in baseball.”
Oxford Hills’ new-found ace, the now 4-0 Johnson, and the Vikings proved that on Friday.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
