Friday, May 15th, 2015
'Riders pull away from Wildcats
Division II Sectional Baseball
By Dave Stilwell
ST. MARYS - St. Marys pitcher Nathan Wilker faced just three batters above the minimum as the Roughriders shut out Kenton 3-0 Thursday at K.C. Geiger Park to advance to the Division II district semifinals.
St. Marys advances to the district semifinals at Bluffton University against Bath next Thursday at 2 p.m. Bath advanced with an impressive 13-0 victory over Upper Sandusky.
Wilker gave up just two hits, walked one and struck out four in going the distance for the Riders. Wilker threw 81 pitches, 52 of which were strikes.
"Nate has started to get to the point where he's taking stuff off to get his curve ball across the plate and keep teams honest," St. Marys coach Jeff Dieringer said. "He hung in there tonight, battled and did a great job."
Wilker's performance overshadowed an impressive outing by Kenton starter Tristan Reichelderfer, who sat down 12 of the first 13 Roughriders he faced and took a shutout into the fifth inning.
"I thought he threw well enough to win too" Dieringer said of the Wildcats' ace, who also pitched well in a 4-0 loss to St. Marys during the regular season. "We definitely expected a close game tonight and we got one. It came down to who got the hits in timely spots."
The Roughriders broke up the scoreless deadlock in the bottom of the fifth. With one out, Josh Young coaxed what would be the only free pass of the night off Reichelderfer. He went to second on a passed ball and then to third on a single up the middle by Michael Hastreiter.
One out later, pinch-runner Michael Harbaum stole second, putting two 'Riders in scoring position for Austin Quellhorst, who blooped an opposite field single over the first baseman's head. Young scored on the hit and then Harbaum scored on a throwing error when Kenton tried to get the ball back into the infield.
St. Marys added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth. Logan Maze led off with a bunt single, stole second and scored on a two-out single by Dustin Howell.
Kenton's only real scoring threat came in the second inning as Seth Conover led off with the game's first hit. Dalton Kessler then hit what appeared to be an easy 6-4-3 double play, but the first throw to second went into right field.
The next Kenton hitter flew out to left field and was followed by Trey Reichelderfer who hit into a 1-6-3 double play to end the inning.
Wilker gave up a one-out single in the third inning, and then retired the next 11 Wildcat hitters before giving up a lead-off walk in the seventh. The St. Marys junior retired the next three hitters to nail down the win.
"We've got to get through those WBL teams. Our district is stacked with them," said Dieringer, who expects to see more good pitching next week. "It doesn't get any easier. We have to prove ourselves again. We were able to get through some of those teams in league play, and we're going to have to continue to do that in the districts."
St. Marys, now 16-5 overall, will play host to Fort Recovery in a tournament tune-up Monday. Kenton ends its season with a 12-13 record.