Sears fans 13 Titans in 7-1 Cyclone victory

 HARLAN (June 4) -- By his own admission, Brett Sears’ first two starts on the mound this season were not up to par.
 Sears earned the win in both outings as the Harlan Community baseball team beat Kuemper Catholic 5-2 and Shenandoah 10-4, but he lasted just four innings each time due to an early-season pitch count limit and some command issues.
 For Sears and HCHS head coach Steve Daeges, Monday night’s performance against Lewis Central was a big step in the right direction.
 Overcoming a bit of a shaky first inning - LC scored one run and left the bases loaded - Sears pitched six innings of three-hit ball and notched 13 strikeouts as the fifth-ranked (Class 3A) Cyclones gradually pulled away for a 7-1 win over the Titans at Jim Goeser Field.
 The junior ace (16-1 the last two years) walked two and also hit two batters but overpowered the bottom half of LC’s lineup with a fastball consistently clocked between 84-86 mph. He also had his secondary pitches working Monday, a big key to Sears (3-0) striking out 10 of the last 13 hitters he faced.
 “That’s a big thing to have ... 85-86 (mph) is nothing to hitters if you can’t locate a curveball at all because they can just sit fastball,” Sears said. “But if you can throw both [fastball and curveball] in the zone and then you get a changeup mixed in there once in a while it helps a lot, so that was working tonight pretty good.”
 HCHS took a little while to get the bats going against LC starter Drake Nettles but from the third inning on took some good swings and hit a lot of balls hard. The Cyclones tied the game with a run in the third, scored two in the fourth to take their first lead and continued to pull away.
 Junior Luke Schaben led HCHS offensively, going 3-for-3 with two doubles and two RBI. Ryan Doran (sac fly, RBI double) and Nick Foss (2-run single) also drove in a pair of runs.