St. Marys earns berth in district tournament

MINSTER - The St. Marys ACME team secured the second District 4 tournament berth from the Auglaize County sectional after scoring 35 runs in two games against Wapakoneta and New Bremen.

The Roughriders rolled to a 12-4 win over the Wapakoneta Redskins during Thursday's elimination bracket final at Hanover Street Park after easily beating New Bremen 23-2 in five innings on Wednesday evening

St. Marys (11-7), which had already lost to Wapak three times during the ACME regular season, will now play the Minster Wildcats for the county championship tonight at 6 p.m. with the Roughriders needing to win two games to capture the crown.

The Roughriders featured a balanced offense against Wapak as they connected for 16 hits, including at least one in every inning. Eight of the nine starters had at least one hit and six scored at least one run.

"We played these guys three times this summer, two of them were close games and to finally beat them is huge," said St. Marys coach Rob Coffey. "We had 16 hits and just one error. We looked good today. It was a solid ball game all the way through from the first inning to the seventh."

Senior Nathan Vogel led the St. Marys offense by going 4-for-4, with four runs scored and three RBI. Isaac Fitzgerald was 3-for-5 with a double and four RBI and Tristan Becker was 2-for-4 with two doubles and a pair of RBI.

St. Marys grabbed a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning when Vogel singled and Jared Knous walked before Becker drove in the pair with a double to the gap in left-centerfield.

After Wapakoneta tied the game in the bottom of the first, St. Marys came right back and took the lead for good with three runs in the top of the second. Brandon Coffey walked to start the inning and Mason Gross followed with a single before Vogel's one-out single to centerfield scoring two runs for a 4-2 Roughriders' lead. Vogel then scored after a bounce out and a pair of wild pitches.

The Roughriders added two insurance runs in the top of the sixth. Vogel led off with a single and Becker followed with a double before Fitzgerald ripped a two-run double to right-centerfield.

After giving up a pair of runs in the first inning, St. Marys' senior Zack Wilker settled down on the mound and shut out Wapakoneta over the next five innings, before allowing two runs in the seventh. Wilker threw 92 pitches in the game but just 54 pitches after the first two innings.

"Once Zack got settled down, he threw great," said coach Coffey. "Once he settled into a groove, he threw strikes and the defense was solid and everything seemed to fall into place.'
St. Marys 23, New Bremen 2 (5 innings)

St. Marys advanced to the elimination final with a 23-2 five-inning, run-rule win over the New Bremen Cardinals on Wednesday night.

St. Marys pounded out a season-high 18 hits, including five for extra bases against four different New Bremen pitchers. In all 10 Roughriders had hits, 12 scored at least one run and eight had at least one RBI.

Zack Wilker led the offense with two hits and four RBI, Dirk Fenwick had three hits and an RBI and Spencer Knous added a double and three RBI off the bench.

St. Marys' Marshall Leininger and Michael Hastreiter combined to hold New Bremen's offense to just two runs and five hits.