Redskins edge 'Cats

SPRINGFIELD - Mike Wiss addressed his team one final time. He hugged players. And then the Minster coach gave a tip of the cap to Fort Loramie.

"When Loramie walked through the line, I said 'Loramie, go win a championship,' " remarked Wiss after a 7-5 defeat at Carleton Davidson Stadium in the Division IV regional baseball semifinals. "They have what it takes to do it. I've seen it before. We've been there before. They have that kind of team."

The defending state champion Wildcats gave a championship effort to rally back into the contest, but Carter Mescher and Dylan Albers supplied a pair of clutch hits in the seventh to propel the Redskins to victory on a night when their pitching staff struggled with control issues.

Fort Loramie (24-6) returns to Springfield tonight to take on Cincinnati Christian (16-8) for a berth in the state final four. Cincinnati Christian defeated Russia 6-1 in Thursday's opener.

"They're our rivals, and we knew they do so many little things right that it was going to take some extraordinary efforts by our guys and it was," said Fort Loramie coach Jeff Sanders, a college teammate of Wiss' at Dayton. "We had pitchers being reinserted and asked to throw strikes in critical situations. We had guys with runners on bases being asked to execute a good at-bat. … We lost here last year and we never got the big hit. We had runners on base like we did tonight and we never got that big hit. Tonight, we did."

Fort Loramie - which had entered the contest with a team batting average of .367 - outhit Minster 17-6 and jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the second inning. However, free passes by the Redskin pitching staff were the equalizer as they walked seven and hit Jared Huelsman three times.

The Redskins scored all five second-inning runs with two outs. Devin Wehrman drew first blood with a one-run double. Shane Hilgefort kept the at-bat alive with a single, Mescher followed with an RBI double, Albers hit a two-run double and C.J. Billing's single supplied the final run of the inning.

Minster ace Austin Brown's day was done after 2 2/3 innings. Brown (7-2) gave up seven hits while walking three and striking out one. Noah Enneking, Jack Heitbrink and Alex Lehmkuhl threw the remaining innings for Minster.

Isaac Schmiesing's RBI single off Jared Middendorf put Minster (22-8) on the scoreboard in the third, but the Wildcats stranded the bases loaded.

Minster loaded the bases with one out in the fourth. Austin Shinabery hit a leadoff single and then Adam Knapke drew a walk. Shinabery was forced out at third on a grounder by August Boehnlein, but a single by Jacob Hoying loaded the bases for Jack Olberding, who drove Knapke home with a sacrifice fly. Boehnlein scored on a wild pitch by Middendorf and Schmiesing made it 5-4 with an RBI single off relief pitcher Nathan Raterman.

Raterman was pulled in favor of Billing after having hit Huelsman and walking Heitbrink to start the fifth. Billling's four-pitch walk to Shinabery loaded the bases and then Knapke tied the game with an RBI force out. Billing walked Boehnlein to reload the bases, but Middendorf returned to record a strikeout and flyout to stave off the threat.

Fort Loramie stranded two runners on base in innings three through six.

Minster had its go-ahead chance fall short in the sixth. The Wildcats couldn't capitalize after Middendorf had walked the first two batters. Raterman returned to the mound, fielded a sac bunt attempt by Huelsman and threw to third to get the lead runner. He got out of the jam with a flyball and a strikeout.

"We left bases loaded once," Wiss said. "We left first and third once. We left first and second once. We just didn't get that hit today. Then they come up and they put good swings on the baseball from one to nine. They're very good and they're very worthy of being where they're at."

And the Redskins reclaimed the lead for good moments later.

Wehrman hit a one-out single in the seventh and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Hilgefort followed with a fly ball in-between left and center that dropped thanks to an outfield miscommunication. Mescher then blooped the go-ahead single to left field and Albers added on with another hit.

Raterman struck out three of the four hitters he faced to end the game at 8:01 pm.

"Loramie's offense is everything that we knew it was," Wiss said. "I just told the guys 'I'm proud as hell.' Loramie put 17 hits on us and I don't think our pitchers fooled any batter for most of the night. The resilience we had to get out of some of those innings and to actually give ourselves a chance for a comeback, for a tie and even for a lead … I'm just proud of our fight. I'm proud of the innings that we're given in the middle of the game by Noah Enneking and Jack Heitbrink to put up four zeros in a row. I related it to the St. Henry game in the district semis. You know, all five Minster runs were scored on two-out hits. Today, Loramie got the two-out hits.

"We went 22-8," Wiss added. "It's a bunch of good kids that devoted two hours of their day to baseball. That's all I ever asked."

Mescher, Albers and Wehrman all had three hits for the Redskins. Mike Hoying and Billing added two apiece.

Schmiesing collected two hits for Minster. Right fielder Jacob Hoying added a diving catch in the fourth.