Aviators Chip Away At Beavercreek 14-10

VANDALIA - There’s a rhythm to early-season baseball that doesn’t always show up in the final score.

Tuesday night at Butler had plenty of scoring — 24 runs between the two teams — but what mattered most wasn’t how often the Aviators crossed the plate. It was how they handled the stretches in between.

Because this one asked something of them.

And they answered.

Butler’s 14-10 scrimmage win over Beavercreek didn’t settle in easily. It moved, shifted, and at times felt like it might get away.

The Aviators jumped out quickly, putting five runs on the board in the first inning — the kind of start that usually lets a team settle into its night. Jack Egbert was right in the middle of it, delivering a two-run hit as part of a three-hit evening that set the tone early.

But Beavercreek didn’t go anywhere.

They answered with five in the second, added three more in the third, and just like that, Butler found itself trailing 9-5 — not because of one swing or one inning, but a stretch where nothing quite lined up the way it needed to.

Those are the innings you remember.

Not because they define you, but because of what comes next.

What came next for Butler was a response that felt a little more measured.

No rush. No trying to get it all back at once.

Just a steady climb.

The Aviators chipped away before putting together their most complete inning of the night in the fifth. Six runs came across, but it wasn’t built on one moment as much as it was a collection of them — good at-bats, pressure on the bases, and a lineup that stayed within itself.

Aidan White’s two-run hit stood out in the inning, part of a night where he drove in three and reached base consistently. Around him, contributions came from all over — Egbert’s three hits, Jackson Schilling’s two RBIs, and timely swings from Davis Ketterer and Paxton Dwenger that kept innings moving forward.

It wasn’t one player.

It was the lineup.

On the mound, Butler found its footing as the game moved along.

After a difficult start, reliever Tate Richardson provided the kind of middle innings that steady everything. Three innings, five strikeouts, and just one run allowed — not overpowering, but controlled, and exactly what the moment required.

Sophomore southpaw Xavier Hollander followed with two scoreless innings, two devastating pickoffs, and allowed just one hit, finishing what Richardson had settled.

There are things that will be cleaned up.

Four errors say as much.

But there’s also something to be said for the way Butler handled the game once it had slipped a bit out of reach.

They didn’t try to force it back all at once.

They played their way back into it.

And when they got there, they stayed.

Next comes Lebanon.

And if Tuesday offered anything worth carrying forward, it’s this — the Aviators showed they can handle a game that doesn’t unfold the way it’s drawn up.

Those tend to come around again once the season starts.