On Saturday the Independence baseball squad traveled to Ardrey Kell High School and faced off against the Knights in the Ardrey Kell spring break baseball tournament.
Neither team could score any runs until the bottom half of the third inning. Ardrey Kell’s Joe Verdeschi led off the inning with a walk. On an attempted pickoff play at first base, the throw was off the mark and ended up in right field, Verdeschi found himself on third base with no outs. The Knights’ Vasili Kaloudis bunted safely to score Verdeschi. Kaloudis worked his way to third base and scored on a passed ball to make the score 2-0. Cam Brantley scored after drawing a walk and working his way to third. He scored on a Parker Ledford base hit. Ledford plated the Knights last run on a sacrifice fly to left field to make the score 4-0 at the end of three full innings.
Indy got on the board in the top of the fifth inning. CJ Brown led off with a double to the left field wall. Chase Rappe moved Brown to third on an infield hit. Bryson Jusko stepped up to the plate and laid down a bunt scoring CJ from third. Nate Brown reached on an error, but the Knights got out of the inning before Indy could score any more runs.
The Knights got the run back in the bottom half of the inning when Cam Brantley drew a walk and stole second. Brantley scored on a Trey Tujetsch double down the third baseline. The Knights moved out to a 5-1 lead at the end of five full innings.
Ardrey Kell added their sixth run in the bottom of the sixth inning. Jacob Cohn led off striking out.  However, Indy’s catcher dropped the ball and Cohn started to first. The throw to first ended up in right field and Cohn came to third base standing up. Cohn came home on a bunt to making the score 6-1.
Indy’ s CJ Brown scored the Patriots’ second and last run in the top of the seventh. After drawing a walk, CJ advanced to second on a passed ball. Chase Rappe singled to right field moving CJ to third. Bubba Comer hit a shot to second, and CJ beat the throw to home to make the final score 6-2.
Independence  0 0 0 0 1 0 1 – 2
Ardrey Kell    0 0 4 0 1 1 X – 6
