Colton Griffiths threw a complete game shutout, striking out five while giving just three hits as the New Prairie baseball team defeated Penn 4-0 Tuesday night in a rain soaked game at Greg Dikos Field in our Sports Michiana Game of the Week.

Griffiths was our Reliance Player of the Game.

The loss was the first in NIC play for Penn, which falls to 10-1. New Prairie improves to 9-2. The two teams meet again Wednesday at Four Winds Field and New Prairie would take over 1st place (based on a tiebreaker) with the win. Saint Joseph also has just two league losses and is still in the conversation as well as they will face Penn in a pair of games next week.

It rained throughout the game, sometimes just drops and at points a very steady rain but that didn’t affect Griffiths or Penn pitcher Bentley Baird. In fact, the first five innings took just over an hour to play.

Baird lost some command in the 6th and walked in the game’s first run. Griffiths then helped his own cause with a sac fly to put the Cougars up 2-0. New Prairie added two more runs in the 7th, highlighted by an RBI triple from Reed Robinson.