Orange Edges Butler 3-2

VANDALIA — There wasn’t much margin in it from the start. And in the end, there wasn’t quite enough left to take back.

Against one of the state’s top Division I programs, Butler didn’t flinch Saturday. It just came up a step short.

Olentangy Orange, patient and persistent, did just enough at the plate and rode a sharp, steady performance on the mound by Easten Michigan commit, Reid Hemrick to slip past the Aviators, 3-2 — a game that felt tight the whole way and never offered much room for error on either side.

“Orange has a really nice team and that was a very competitive game,” said Butler coach Trent Dues. “Their pitcher is a DI guy and it was a good challenge for us.”

Carson Perry gave Butler exactly what you’d want in a matchup like this — four innings, six hits, two runs, and no free passes. Nothing easy. Nothing given away. Just a right-hander working through traffic and keeping the game in reach against a lineup that eventually finished with ten hits.

“Carson Perry did a nice job for us on the mound to keep us within striking distance,” Dues said.

The Pioneers scratched the first run across in the second, another later, and added what turned out to be the difference in the sixth. Not overwhelming — just enough on this day.

And that’s what made it difficult.

Because Butler didn’t have many answers waiting on the other side.

Orange’s Hemrick controlled the pace from the first pitch on. Seven innings, two hits, ten strikeouts, one walk. Butler’s two runs came in the sixth — both unearned — but not without being earned in their own way.

Jackson Schilling put it in play, a slow roller that forced the issue up the third base line. Orange third baseman Xavier Aguila charged, tried to play it clean, and couldn’t — the ball slipping under his glove as two runs came home. It goes in the book as an error. But it started with Schilling doing just enough to make something happen.

That was the window.

Koby Dues and Jack Egbert accounted for Butler’s only two hits. Opportunities were limited, and when they came, they had to be taken clean. Against that kind of pitching, there’s not much room for anything else.

“Their shortstop made a diving play to end the 6th with runners on that proved to be the difference,” Dues said. “We have to find a way to compete better against a pitcher like that especially with two strikes.”

Still, Butler played it the way it knows how. Clean in the field. No errors. One double play. Carson Heis handled eight chances without a misstep. The details were there.

But so was the opponent.

Dues came back to give two scoreless innings in relief, striking out three and keeping it close. Schilling worked the seventh. The bullpen did its job. The defense held its ground.

It just needed one more swing somewhere along the way.

Didn’t get it.

“I was proud of how we hung in there and kept plugging away to finally give us an opportunity to push some runs across late in the game,” Dues said. “Hopefully this type of game will help us down the road as we have some big games ahead of us.”

And against a team like Olentangy Orange, that’s usually how it goes — not a game that gets away from you, but one that never quite turns back your direction either.

Butler walks out of the weekend at 16-2, 11-1 having seen exactly what it needed to see this time of year — a tight game, played clean, against a program that doesn’t give you anything.

The margin was thin.

Saturday proved just how thin.

A good lesson for a team at the doorstep of the tournament.