New Palestine High School

The New Palestine baseball team inaugurated its new turf field Tuesday in dramatic fashion, scoring two runs in the bottom of the seventh to post a come-from-behind 6-5 victory over Shelbyville. Rigg Mahurin's sacrifice fly plated Jacob Morris with one out in the seventh to bring home the winning run. With the Dragons trailing 5-4 going into the final half-inning, Adam Rickey led off with a walk. He then stole second with Morris batting. Morris then hit a chopper to short. The shortstop hesitated - hoping to catch Rickey off the bag - but in doing so, Morris beat out the throw for an infield hit. Both runners advanced 90 feet on a wild pitch, putting the tying run on third. Nic Deering brought in Rickey with a sacrifice fly to right, tying the game. Morris moved to third on the play, moving the winning run 90 feet away with one out. After back-to-back intentional walks, Mahurin stepped in. He hit the first pitch high and deep to the rightfield corner. It was snared, but Morris came home with the winning run to give the Dragons an Opening Day victory. The Dragons trailed 4-0 after a half-inning, but continued to claw back into the game to set up the comeback. Shelbyville took advantage of two hit batters, a walk and a pair of two-run hits to take that early lead. The Dragons, who had the leadoff runner reach in all seven innings, slowly crawled back. Jackson Kamp led off the second with a single and scored on an infield hit by Gavin Neal. Morris led the third off with a single. He was forced at second on Deering's grounder, but Deering then used his baserunning prowess to swipe a run. He stole second, then went to third on an errant throw back to the pitcher and scored on the same play when the pitcher threw wildly trying to nail Deering at third. In the fourth, the Dragons drew within a run when Mahurin reached on a dropped third strike to lead off. After a walk and a sacrifice by Neal, he scored on Michael Thorpe's groundout. NP couldn't draw even in the fifth, as a doubleplay erased a leadoff walk, and then fell behind in the sixth as Shelbyville scored a run on two hits. But again, the Dragons clawed back in the bottom of the frame. Kamp drew a leadoff walk, but was still at first after back-to-back flyouts. With two outs, Neal crushed a pitch to deep right, which nearly left the yard, but bounced off the fence. Kamp scampered in, scoring from first on the double to draw NP within 5-4. Rickey pitched around a pair of two-out hits in the seventh to keep the deficit at a run and give the Dragons' bats a chance. Rickey (1-0) earned the win in relief, allowing four hits and one run in two innings. He fanned three Golden Bears. Michael Thorpe had a solid start. After a rough first inning in which the Golden Bears scored four runs on two its, Thorpe followed with four scoreless innings. He scattered five hits.and two walks - but only three hits and one intentional walk after the first. Thorpe struck out seven Golden Bears in the no-decision. The Dragons improved to 1-0, both overall and in conference play. Shelbyville fell to 2-1 (0-1). The teams will play the second of their two-game series at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Shelbyville.