Feeling Golden: Guerin Catholic wins first baseball title with emphatic win over Andrean

The Guerin Catholic baseball team took to Victory Field with quiet confidence.

It’s the type of confidence a team has when it knows it’s done everything in its power to prepare for the moment ahead. It’s the type of confidence that negates the fact that the Golden Eagles were playing in their first ever state title game, and the team in the opposite dugout, Andrean, was going for its state-record 10th championship.

The Golden Eagles wasted little time establishing that they were not only up to the moment, but they were ready to shine on the biggest stage in program history.

Given a three-run lead after the first half inning, senior starter Tate Troxell dominated the 59ers, striking out 12 and allowing just one run over six innings, leading Guerin to a 9-3 Class 3A state championship win.

The win will move Guerin to Class 4A next season due to its tournament success factor. Andrean will also move up to Class 4A after reaching Victory Field twice in two seasons.

“When we get that 3-0 lead its real easy for me to get into autopilot and just cruise,” Troxell said. “Usually, I’m pretty breaking ball heavy. Today I was able to get ahead with my fastball. I think they were sitting off-speed too, so being able to use my fastball to get ahead with it was huge.

“From the first pitch I knew I was going to dominate and do what I do every time.”

Troxell ran into a bit of trouble early after Andrean’s first two batters reached base. The Alabama commit quickly regrouped, striking out five of the next six batters. The 59ers threatened again in the third, but Luke Gremelspacher snagged a line drive from Kaden Maxwell and doubled off the runner at first to end the inning. Troxell’s fastball sits in the low 90 mph and the Andrean hitters had trouble picking it up. Six of his 12 strikeouts did not draw a swing from the batter.

While Andrean struggled to time up Troxell, Guerin was all over the Andrean pitching staff. The Golden Eagles took an all-hands-on-deck approach to prepare for Andrean’s staff of left-handed pitchers. They set up their pitching machine to throw left-hitting breaking balls. They had all their left-handed pitchers throw live at bats and they enlisted coach Dave Schrage and shortstop Karson Smith’s dad, Kyle, also left-handers, to throw batting practice to the players as well.

Illinois commit Kaden Maxwell, 6-foot-4 senior Louis Gage and Ian Funk, a lefty with a crafty delivery entered Saturday’s game having allowed a combined 32 earned runs over 126⅓ innings. Maxwell allowed three runs on two hits and was pulled after two-thirds of an inning. Funk and Gage also lasted just two-thirds innings each, giving way to righty Chase Nelson after Guerin built a 6-0 lead.

“We set our (pitching) machine up from left-handed breaking balls and that’s all we worked on,” Schrage said. “Myself and one of our coaches are left-handed, so we threw all week. So, we just pounded the left handers, so they got to see that more and more.

“We knew their top three guys were lefties and that was what we were going to see.”

Smith started the scoring with a RBI ground out. Ben Canada scored on a wild pitch, and Grant Beard plated one with a triple. Nolan Ratcliff led off the second with a single and scored on a wild pitch. Ratcliff added the knockout blow with a three-run double in fourth. Ratcliff tied a Class 3A state record with four RBIs. Ratcliff and Canada had two hits each. Ian Taylor drove in one with a sacrifice fly in the second.

“We had been struggling pretty terribly against lefties all season,” Ratcliff said. “We really hammered machine work on lefties. … I knew we were going to put balls in play. I knew it was going to be a big run-scoring day.

“We hadn’t scored much all postseason, but as soon as we saw that left come on the mound, we knew what he was throwing. We knew how he was throwing. We knew we were going to get in the box and hit some gap shots.”

The state title is a culmination of the work Guerin’s senior class put in laying the foundation for the state-champion winning program. The Golden Eagles had five seniors — Troxell, Beard, Gremelspacher, Ratcliff and Taylor — starting on varsity since their freshman season. They knew last season after losing to Jasper in the semistate semifinal that with everyone coming back, a trip to Victory Field was just possible, it was their main goal heading into the 2026 season.

“After losing last year at Jasper we knew we had the talent, we could’ve done it last year.” Taylor said. “We were ranked No. 1 all year. We had full confidence, but it was really just the brotherhood and friendships.

“When you trust the person to the right and left of you like your brother, you’re not going to lose.”

Read more: IHSAA 3A baseball state championship; Guerin Catholic defeats Andrean

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA Baseball: Guerin Catholic wins Class 3A state title over Andrean