Pitching highlights weekend's ballgames

ST. HENRY - The first four games of the District 4 ACME baseball tournament featured several big pitching performances at the Wally Post Athletic Complex in St. Henry.

Coldwater received tremendous pitching performances from Aaron Harlamert on Saturday in the Cavaliers' 11-1 win over Russia and then from Kyle McKibben in the winner's bracket final against Minster with a 4-0 win.

Minster made the winner's bracket final thanks to a one-hit performance by Peter Falk, who outdueled Celina's Seth Lonsway in a 1-0 win.

Celina kept its season going on Sunday, eliminating Russia with a 5-3 win in the second game of the day.

Celina and Minster face off tonight in the loser's bracket final. The start time has been moved up to 6 p.m. from its original 7 p.m. start. The winner takes on Coldwater in the district title game Tuesday at 6 p.m. Since Coldwater is automatically entered into the state tournament as the host team, tonight's winner automatically takes the District 4 spot in the eight-team single-elimination tournament scheduled to start Saturday at Veterans Field.
SUNDAY
Coldwater 4, Minster 0

McKibben retired the first 10 batters before a Bryce Schmiesing single with one out in the fourth broke up the no-hitter. Schmiesing was thrown out trying to steal second for the second out and Brett Hoelscher struck out to end the inning, allowing McKibben to face the minimum 12 batters through four innings.

"It starts on the mound. He's had a real great summer on the mound," Coldwater coach Tom Brunswick said. "I like the way he went at them and used his defense. I know it's fun to play behind him because he throws strikes and works real quick."

After missing chances to score in the first two innings, Coldwater was able to scratch a run across in the third off Wildcat starter Aaron Ernst. Aaron Harlamert singled to lead off the inning. Two outs later, Kraig Schoenherr doubled in Harlamert to make it 1-0.

The Cavaliers plated two more in the fourth thanks to RBI singles from Petey Post and McKibben. The final run came in the sixth when Post's sacrifice fly scored Nate Grunden.

"I thought we swung the bats pretty well," Brunswick said. "We left some guys on early, but Schoeny came through with a double for the first run. Petey knocked in a few and Kibby (McKibben) knocked in one."

"Two things stood out today," Minster coach Mark Wiss said. "Minster put up a zero on the scoreboard. Obviously you're not going to win if you do that. Second, Coldwater scored four runs with two outs (in the game). That's (Coldwater) coming up big in crunch time and we couldn't get the bats started."
Celina 5, Russia 3

Three straight doubles from Isaiah Eichler, Justin Keeling and C.J. Kimmel gave Celina a 2-0 lead after one inning. Seth Lonsway added an RBI single in the second to make it 3-0.

Kevin McGohan allowed a run in the second before running into trouble in the top of the third as the Raiders tied the game with two runs coming on a single from Zach Sherman.

Shawn Rose came on to pitch in the fourth for Celina and shut down any future Russian scoring threats. Rose struck out five of the first six batters he faced and held the Raiders to just three hits over the final four innings.

"He's done a good job for us all year," Celina coach Scott Montgomery said of Rose. "He hasn't thrown (in a game) in a little bit, but he came in, threw strikes and our defense made the plays."

Celina broke the tie in the bottom of the third. Kimmel hit his second double of the game, went to third on an errant pickoff throw and then came home on McGohan's groundout. Tanner Freeman added an insurance run in the fifth with an RBI double to score McGohan, who reached on a two-out hit by pitch.

"We did a much better job today jumping on pitches and getting some hits," Montgomery said. "Big win for us."
SATURDAY
Minster 1, Celina 0

Celina starter Lonsway and Minster starter Peter Falk had their A-games going on Saturday. It was all a matter of which team could connect on a couple of plays to bring home a run.

Minster stepped up in the bottom of the fourth. Bryce Schmiesing walked and went to second on an errant pickoff throw by Lonsway. After Lonsway struck out Falk, Josh Nixon singled to right, bringing in Schmiesing for the first run of the day and breaking up Lonsway's no-hitter after 3 1/3 innings. Celina shut down any chance for Minster to score insurance runs. Ernst came up with a two-out hit to right and Nixon came chugging for home, but Kole Murlin fired a perfect throw to Eichler, who applied the tag to end the inning.

Lonsway allowed just another hit and walk over his final two innings, finishing with 11 strikeouts, two walks and three hits.

"He's the best we've seen," Wiss said of Lonsway. "First time through the order, we took a lot of pitches and a lot of called third strikes. We told them we've got to be a little more aggressive and put some pressure on them."

"Seth did a great job," Montgomery said.

Falk had control of his pitches throughout the game. Falk hit McGohan with a pitch in the second inning, but Tanner Freeman hit into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning, which allowed Falk to face the minimum 18 batters though the first six innings.

"Peter saw what he was up against early on and matched (Lonsway) pitch for pitch. Our defense was tremendous behind him," Wiss said. "A lot of infield ground balls."

"Falk pitched a great game," Montgomery said. "The past few games we did a great job getting hits. We couldn't do it (Saturday). (Falk) was right around the strike zone the whole game. He didn't have a lot of strikeouts (three), but he was effective."

Down to their final three outs, the Bulldogs tried to muster the offense to tie the game. Lonsway ended Falk's no-hit bid with a clean single to left but was forced out at second when Eichler grounded to third. Keeling moved Eichler to second on a hard grounder back to Falk. After a brief meeting with Wiss and the infielders, Kimmel, who had hit two of the hardest hit balls of the day on flyouts, was intentionally walked to get to McGohan, who ended the game with a groundout to Nixon at short.
Coldwater 11, Russia 1 (6 innings)

The Cavaliers took control early on the Raiders, scoring three times off Jonah Counts in the first inning. University of Toledo-bound Malave Bettinger had an RBI single and Jack Hemmelgarn had a sacrifice fly.

That was more than enough for Aaron Harlamert as the senior-to-be scattered three hits, did not walk a batter and struck out nine in five innings for the win. Hemmelgarn pitched a perfect sixth.

"Aaron threw well on the mound. It was nice to get him some runs early to get the lead," Brunswick said.

Coldwater added single runs in the second and third innings before putting the game away with five runs in the fifth. Jacob Hartings had an RBI single and later scored on a wild pitch. Bettinger added two more runs with a single. The final run came with two outs in the sixth as McKibben singled in Nate Rindler to trigger the run-rule.

The top three batters in the lineup - Harlamert, McKibben and Bettinger - were a combined 6-of-12 with five RBIs. Hartings and Petey Post each added two hits.

"Jacob has been up with us (from Junior ACME) the last couple of games and has done a nice job behind the plate," Brunswick said. "The guys you count on in the middle of the order (Bettinger, Kraig Schoenherr and Hemmelgarn) all came through and we got some knocks from the bottom of the batting order."