Chris Tilton Sports: 2015-05-10

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

North's Big Inning Puts Them Over South

Local baseball and softball teams wrapped up their regular seasons this past week. It was also rivals week for North and South as these two teams squared off on the diamond. Both baseball teams have had successful seasons and entered the game with winning records. Although South scored first in this close game, North had a big inning that put the game away.

Both teams were scoreless through the first 3 innings. Jacob Bassler pitched for South, while Austin Elmore took the mound for the hosts. South scored their 2 runs in the 4^th inning. Wes Cole reached on a walk and scored on a double by Brandon Simpson. Simpson advanced to 3^rd on a wild pitch where he scored off of a hit by Gunter Lautensleger. This put South up 2-0 and in their half of the 4^th, North was 3 and out.

South seemed poised to score again in the 5^th when they loaded up the bases with one out. But Elmore struck out the next batter and the next popped out to leave 3 stranded. North also loaded the bases in their at bat in the 5^th, but were able to drive the runners home. Logan Elmore, Steve Miller, Austin Elmore, and Nick Gray all got hits in the inning. South finally had to switch pitchers and went with Austin Roell. He ended the inning by fielding a hit ball and completing a double play which sent North back to the dugout. But South was down 4-2 with 2 innings left.

North made a pitching change the next inning with Zach Edgin taking the mound after Elmore walked 2 batters. He did his job, closing out the side and South left the 2 runners stranded. Neither team would score the rest of the way and so North would earn the 4-2 win. North also had a comeback win earlier in the week against Milton Union 11-8. Bo Hendrickson was the pitcher of record.

Finally, North played spoiler to Arcanum later in the week – beating them 3-1 behind the pitching of Nick Gray. Arcanum had locked up the conference crown but was trying to end their season undefeated in the CCC, but North took that away with the victory and will be carrying momentum into the post season.

“We just had one bad inning,” stated South’s coach Bassler after the game.”we got that early lead and in the 5^th inning they got on Jacob Bassler, they had him figured out. I might have been 1 or 2 batters late getting him out of there. We hit decently today, they had a nice pitcher, but we also left a lot of runners on base.

The tournament, “We play Preble Shawnee and someone has to come ready to play. We played each other in the regular season and we know each other.”

South did have two wins earlier in the week. They beat Bradford 7-5 behind winning pitcher Code Roell. The team celebrated Senior night at McBride stadium (where the Richmond Roosters played) in Richmond. Their opponent was Seton Catholic which they beat 7-5. Winning pitcher was Gunter Lautensleger – who was selected as a starter by the South Seniors who got to select the opening lineup on Senior night. The night was highlighted by a Wes Cole home run that was hit out of the stadium.

North’s coach Tucker commented after the game, “I think we battled really well. We saw Jacob Bassler – the same pitcher we saw last year. He has some off speed stuff and he really made us work until we figured it out. It took a couple of times through the lineup, but as a good hitting team we should be able to figure out a pitcher on the 3^rd time through. Elmore had a good game pitching, I think he is going to be a big factor in the tournament for us.

Coach Tucker was asked about the tournament, “We face Northridge and they have played some good teams this year. They have a couple of good pitchers – they have played close with some good teams and beat some teams that you would have thought they wouldn’t. We have to be ready for whoever they put on the mound and we have to battle with them.”

South Garners 2 wins in Last Week of Season

South had another week where they started off slow, but finished strong. They lost their first two games against Bradford and North, but finished the regular season with wins against league foe Miami East and the SWBL’s Eaton Eagles. So the team achieved some measure of momentum going into their last 2 games of the season - a double header against Dixie.

First game for the Panthers was against Bradford. South struggled against Bradfords pitching. Although they did get 4 runs on the night, they allowed 10 in the loss. Next up for South was their rivals down 503 – North. The teams were closely matched, but South did not help their cause with mistakes on the base paths on offense and fielding errors on defense. Coach Robinson would later state that this was one game that got away from them.

South got a decent lead early, but seemed to relax and that let North back in the game. North kept chipping away at South’s lead and on defense, they shut out South the last 5 innings of the game. North scored the tying and winning runs in their bottom half of the last inning – so it was a dramatic come from behind win. Kelsie Shafer and Lacey Emerick both had 2 hits and 2 RBI’s for South.

“I was highly disappointed that we couldn't close this game out.” Remarked coach Robinson after the game. “We came out strong in the first two innings, scoring 3 runs in each inning, then our base running errors and mental mistakes seemed to take over, and we never scored again the rest of the way. I have to say, our mistakes on the base paths were the worst I've seen in a while, and they basically cost us at least 3-4 runs. Add in our four defensive errors, which caused us to give up 5 runs, and we could have come away with a big win over our rivals. I do give TCN some credit; they hung tough and never gave up hope. “

But South made up for the loss with a win over Miami East. And the team put together a better performance – only one error on defense and their offense exploded for 14 runs. Pitcher Ali Robertson got the win and Hailee Bright earned a save. Robertson aided her cause with 3 hits at the plate. The team got the lead early and did not look back as they scored 7 runs in the first 3 innings and then solidified the lead with 6 runs in the 4^th. The team only allowed 2 runs in the 14-2 rout.

An elated coach Robinson was asked about this game, “I thought we were much smarter at the plate, as well as on the bases. Several players hit the ball well. Ali Robertson pitched her third game in 3 days; she has definitely done her job on the mound all week. I did decide to bring Hailee Bright in to get the final 5 outs of the game. She got the first 4 batters out before walking one, then got the final out to pop up to the infield. Lacey Emrick deserves credit for the work she's done this week behind the plate as well.”

South had one of those games against Eaton that gives coaches ulcers. They were scoreless in the early going and spotted the Eagles 5 runs. But in a reversal of their roles from the North game, South now played the comeback kids – scoring 13 runs in the last 3 innings to gain the lead and then hold off a last inning rally by Eaton for the 13-10 win.

Coach Robinson was happy with the comeback win, “I give a lot of credit to our girls for having the determination and heart to battle through the adversity of this game. In pretty much every other game of the season where we got down early, we never were able to make a comeback to win the ball game. I'm very grateful for today's win. It's not very often that we can record 6 errors and still come away with a victory. Eaton has improved tremendously in the past couple of years, so we knew we had our work cut out for us, going into the game.”

Alas, South was not able to carry forward the momentum they gained against the Eagles as they closed out the week against Dixie – one of the better teams in the area. They would end up losing a closely contested opening game 4-1, and couldn’t seem to manage a challenge in the second game, losing 12-1.