Bellmont 7, East Noble 6: The Cam Friedt Game

Baseball has a romantic way to make the sport something unique, special, and distinct. Usually, in a baseball game, you know that the goal for a team is to score the most runs in 7 innings for a high school game. Many times, a baseball game is won by a pitcher’s duel with your ace on the mound or a walkoff hit/home run by a star player.

Rarely do you ever have a pinch hitter be the one that makes the biggest play of the game or the biggest hit. It’s more rare to have a pinch hitter have their first career home run coming in crunchtime against the opposing team’s best reliever. It’s even more rare to have a pinch hitter hit his first varsity home run in the 6th inning of a 1-run game that essentially became a battle for a conference championship. That moment happened earlier this week in Kendallville between conference rivals Bellmont and East Noble.

May 14, 2024 will forever be synonymous in Bellmont baseball history. On a night where an NE8 championship was on the line, fans witnessed the most exciting hours of NE8 baseball that we have seen in sometime. This game had many heroes representing the maroon and blue instilling the storied Braves image of Northern Adams.

Norwell, who came into that day undefeated in NE8 play, had already lost to Columbia City 3-1 in C. City. All East Noble needed to do was beat a young but red-hot Bellmont team, and they would become co-conference champs. East Noble Baseball last won a conference championship in 1986. However, things didn’t transpire like many would expect on paper.

The Braves came into the season having lost their top starting pitching Eli Laurent to graduation (now at Olivet Nazarene), but it was a team returning a lot of experience from that 2023 season. The start to this season was a trialing one. Bellmont lost 6 of their first 8 games. A 5-4 loss to Delta on May 6 dropped Bellmont’s record to 3-10-1. Simply put, the Braves needed a spark.

Less than 24 hours later in Decatur, down 5-1 in the bottom of the 3rd and 6-5 in the bottom of the 6th against New Haven, the Braves stormed back from both deficits to defeat the Bulldogs 10-6. 3 nights later, Bellmont defeated perennial NE8 power DeKalb 4-3 thanks to a stellar pitching performance from Aidan Zimmerman by holding DeKalb to just 5 hits, an earned run, and whiffing 11 batters. Keagan Martin’s blast helped Zimmerman and the Braves finish the job in front of the hometown fans.

After splitting a Saturday home doubleheader with the SAC’s Northrop Bruins, the Braves had to finish out the NE8 schedule having to make the long trip up north to Kendallville to play a crucial conference game at Municipal Field to take on an 11-win East Noble squad that was still mathematically alive for a co-conference championship.

Pitchers Beau Baker of Bellmont and Gunner Wiley of East Noble battled to a 1-1 tie through 5 innings. Baker went on to pitch 6 2/3 innings, allowing 6 hits, 2 earned runs, a walk, and struck out 5 East Noble batters. He also collected 2 hits and drove in a key run.

In the Top of the 6th, a passed ball scored Jack Scheumann from 3rd base to take a 2-1 lead. After reliever Luke Mast walked a batter, it set up the moment when junior Cameron Friedt came to the plate as a pinch hitter and EN’s Jackson Leedy coming into the game to try to keep it a 2-1 game. Friedt, who is a two-way lineman on the football team and wrestles in the 285lb division, had just 3 plate appearances coming into this at-bat.

The stage was set: Cam Friedt vs East Noble’s top reliever (Jackson Leedy) with 1 out in the top of the 6th. Friedt said in a critical moment of the game, Coach Aaron Baker gave Friedt an opportunity to take a crucial at-bat in a conference championship game.

“Coach Baker turned to me and said ‘Friedt go swing a bat’, so I went out and got a couple swings in, and they said I was up.” said Friedt.

Friedt said he had seen two runners on 1st and 3rd base, to which he knew his job was to put the ball in play. Simple task for what was a game amplified by high conference stakes. After taking a couple pitches, he kept the at-bat alive by fouling a couple more. Then came the pitch that changed the outcome of the game and the NE8 championship. A 3-2 count against Leedy with Bellmont still only up by 1. After a hard fought at-bat, Friedt finally found his pitch.

“I just saw (an) inside fastball and swung,” said Friedt. “When I hit it, I thought it was gonna be a pop fly and I would score someone. But it just kept going and going, and, ironically enough, me and Aidan Zimmerman before the AB were like ‘what are the chances I hit the scoreboard?’ But I was as surprised as everyone else.”

One pitch and one swing led to a deep drive over the left field fence for a 3-run home run giving Bellmont a 5-1 lead. It was just his 2nd varsity hit and more importantly his first varsity home run. The game had swung completely in Bellmont’s direction as the Braves went on to add two runs and eventually beating East Noble 7-6.

While EN scored 4 runs in the Bottom of the 7th and had runners at 1st and 2nd with 2 outs, Jack Scheumann closed out the game to preserve Beau Baker’s stellar performance on the mound and Cam Friedt’s memorable game.

It’s the type of story that only Hollywood can ever script. Here’s a multi-sport athlete that is still making a name for himself as a Bellmont hero. He still has one more year left of high school, so his journey is far from over. A name that doesn’t get the front page headlines. In the end, however, it is this moment that he and his family and friends will remember for the rest of their lives.

This type of moment can only be topped by what transpired 41 years ago when David Miller hit a grand slam and drove in 5 runs against East Noble to not only doomed their hopes of a conference championship but to help Bellmont win the 1983 NEIAC championship all to themselves. In their 2-decade stint in that conference, Bellmont had won the NEIAC baseball title 4 times (1976, 1983, 1987, and 1989 (the last ever NEIAC baseball title)).

Of course, going back to the win over East Noble this season, Bellmont did not win a conference championship, nor did it put them over the .500 mark, but it certainly provided a boost of confidence that the Braves can take with them going into sectional play.

Since that game, Bellmont posted back-to-back 1-run losses at Carroll (5-4) and Jay County (4-3). However, compared to where they were at the start of the season, the (7-13-1) Bellmont Braves that we know today are a much improved and confident ball club that hopes to compete for a sectional title once again, when the state tournament gets underway in less than a week at the Norwell Sectional.

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