Cayden Shaver was in command.

The Danville pitcher tossed five innings and allowed just three baserunners while striking out nine batters as the Admirals cruised to a 10-0 victory in five innings over Garrard County.

“I thought it was close to a complete game all the way around,” Danville head coach Paul Morse said. “Cayden threw lights out, did a great job mixing up his pitches, working ahead and keeping his pitch count down.”

As good as Shaver was on the mound, Garrard’s pitching struggled to find the strike zone.

In just 4.1 innings, Garrard pitchers threw 10 walks and hit three batters.

“We walked 10, hit three. Thirteen people we gave free bags, and they scored 10 runs,” Garrard head coach CJ Lynn said. “When we threw strikes and made them swing the bats, they had six hits. You make them swing and it may be a totally different game. You can’t win games when you walk 10 people. That’s the biggest thing.”

Ethan Wood had another strong day at the dish for Danville, going 2-for-2 with a walk, home run and five runs batted in. He hit a sacrifice fly to right field to end the game in the bottom of the fifth inning.

Danville struck out just three times on the day, something that Morse was happy to see.

“Offensively, we had some good at bats,” he said. “We had some good key hits, but it wasn’t always the hits. It was not swinging at pitches out of the zone. We had some really good at bats. Defensively I thought we were good as well.”

The opposite was the case for Garrard at the plate: The Golden Lions had won four-straight games before Wednesday’s loss, and had scored at least eight runs in each of those contests.

“You’ve just got to let it go,” Lynn said. “There’s another game tomorrow if the weather cooperates. We know we’ve got to play them two more times. We’ve got to come out with better at-bats and we can’t walk as many people … Our at-bats aren’t what we’ve done in the past week. Our approach, we didn’t make adjustments like we had in the last week and a half. We’ve been having great quality at bats and we just didn’t do that tonight.”

Shaver helped himself at the plate, going 1-for-3 with two RBIs. Jacob Crank was 1-for-1 with two walks, three runs scored and two runs batted in. Brennan Washington was 1-for-3 with two runs scored and two stolen bases. Austin Mott had three walks and scored all three times for the Admirals, swiping two bags on the way.

“As young as we are, with the injuries we have right now, it’s just about us getting better,” Morse said. “That’s what we’re preaching, we’ve got another month of the season left. That’s what we told them before the game: Wherever you’re at, whatever you’re doing, try to get better today. Whether that’s at the plate, running the bases, defensively, pitching, those things you have to do better to be a better player, work on that today. And I thought our guys for the most part did that.”

Tanner McGuffey, Isaac Lyons and Connor Isaccs were the only three Garrard players to notch a hit on Shaver.

Lynn said he wants to see his seniors take command in today’s final game of the series and lead by example.

“You want to see your seniors have success, they’ve been here four years,” he said. “They’ve had success against Danville, losses against Danville. That’s what you want to see in a district rivalry. You want to see more from them, they’ve played these guys before.”