By Gary R. Rasberry
grasberry@dailystandard.com COLDWATER -- Coldwater played the bare amount of games needed to win the 2004 Mercer County ACME sectional title after defeating Parkway 13-2 in five innings on Sunday at Veterans' Field.
The win allowed the Cavaliers (17-6) to play the runner-up from Shelby County at 6 p.m. on Friday as part of the District tournament held at Jim Hoess Field in Celina.
Despite the loss, Parkway (19-10) advanced to the district and will play the Auglaize County champion on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Hoess Field.
The Panthers made it to the district by winning two games on Saturday, including a comeback win over a Celina team that run-ruled them on Thursday evening and had the Panther players and coaches champing at the bit to get another opportunity to play the Bulldogs.
Coldwater 13, Parkway 2 After giving up two runs in the top of the first inning, Gaston Pleiman settled down and limited Parkway to just three hits on the game, striking out six and walking four.
Coldwater skipper Romie Schwieterman, who turned 50 on the Fourth of July, was happy that Pleiman was able to gain control.
"(Sometimes) you get a few butterflies and he had a few pitches high," said Schwieterman. "It was one of those games where he had to stay in there and battle. He had to be able to get out of trouble and come back."
The Cavalier offense made sure Pleiman was out of trouble with a four-run bottom of the first. After getting three hits to load the bases off Panther starter Rikki Covarrubius, Brad Heyne grounded hard to third. Ryan Berry misplayed the ball into leftfield, scoring Kyle Schoenherr and Chad Geier. A throwing error to second base allowed Ryan Gerlach to score and give Coldwater the lead. Heyne ended up on third and scored when Matt Howell laid down the perfect bunt to go with the suicide squeze.
"That four-spot helped," said Schwieterman. "After you get a lead, you might get too conservative, sometimes that plays against you, but he got out of a couple of jams."
After getting another run in the second, Coldwater looked to break things open with five runs in the third. Covarrubius was chased from the mound and Berry came on to get out of the jam.
With the fifth inning coming up, Coldwater needed just three runs to trigger the run rule. With the bases loaded, Troy Siefring came through, blasting a two-run double to score Dave Wenning Trevor Stromblad to get the magic number plus insurance.
That was all Pleiman needed, as he received some big defensive plays. Schoenherr made a tremendous catch deep in center to end one threat and Stromblad dove for an out in the third inning. In the bottom of the fifth, Jeff Boyer reached on a walk but Coldwater broke things up with a double play when Covarrubius grounded to Howell at third. After Jordan Heckler doubled, Berry was enticed to fly out to center to end the game.
"Coming back from (Saturday) takes a lot," said Parkway coach Mike Moorman. "We had a big day yesterday. What I remember from the three games with Coldwater (of which Coldwater won all three) was the free passes and the errors. You can't give good (Continued from page 1B)
teams extra chances. Coldwater is a great team. We're a great team also. If we play with the same intensity as (Saturday), we'll be fine."
SATURDAY'S GAMES
Parkway 8, Celina 5
After getting beat 13-1 on Thursday, Parkway got a rematch with Celina.
Early on, it looked like Parkway, which had been running low on pitchers, were going to be knocked out after Celina scored four runs in the second inning. Parkway responded with a run in the bottom of the second and two more in the third to cut it one as Celina began looking for arms to put on the mound.
Celina made it 5-3 in the top of the fifth but Parkway put on a show in the bottom of the inning. Singles by Grant Ross and Jordan Thompson scored two runs to tie the game. Steve Hays broke out of slump with a single of his own for the go-ahead run at 6-5. The big blow came from the bat of Heckler, who hit a two-run single to score Thompson and Hays to make it 8-5.
That was all Ross needed. Ross came on in relief of Tyler Brickley in the second inning and allowed just two hits and one unearned run in the final 5 2/3 innings to get the win. Caleb Byrley, who was the third Celina pitcher after Joe Clouse and Andy Waesch, suffered the loss, allowing five hits and five earned runs in four innings.
"I thought Parkway played an outstanding game," said Celina coach Ron Fortkamp. "We threw three pitchers and they hit them all. Parkway deserved to win. They're going to district and Mercer County will be very well represented. We have two pretty good teams going in, you can't ask for much more."
"Our kids had something to prove after Thursday night," said Moorman. "They didn't want anyone taking us for granted. You can't say enough about how they played tonight. Bouncing back from down 4-0 really says something. They wanted it. They proved it tonight."
Covarrubius paced the Panthers with a 2-for-3 game after being on the ground for several minutes after colliding with Heckler going after the ball. Covarrubius took a shot to the thigh but was able to get up and shake off the injury.
Coldwater 6, Celina 5 (8 innings)
Saturday kicked off with what may have been the best game of the tournament as the top two seeds looked for the automatic spot in the district.
Coldwater held a 1-0 through three innings before Celina tied things up in the fourth. After the Cavs re-tied the game in the bottom of the ining, Celina scored three in the fifth to take a 5-3 lead.. Coldwater responded by scoring twice in the bottom half of the fifth and took the lead in the bottom of the sixth on Ryan Gerlach's solo shot over the leftfield fence.
Steve Borger looked to hold on to give the Cavs the win in the seventh but Nick Gray led off with a double. After Joe Roberts singled to put runners on the corners, Geier came on to close things out. After Kiel Hawk moved the runners up with a groundout, Schwieterman chose to intentionally pass Eric Braun, who was 3-for-3 coming in. With just one out, Fortkamp called for the suicide squeeze. Darren Fleck bunted but popped it up. Geier came sliding in but could not get the ball, scoring Gray to tie things up. Coldwater failed to score in the bottom of the seventh to send the game into extra innings.
In the bottom of the eighth, Schoenherr reached on an error but was forced out at second on Siefring's grounder. A Geier single prompted Fortkamp to send Gerlach to first on the free pass. Heyne stepped up and singled to left-center to score Siefring.
"The first game was just a really well-played game," said Fortkamp. "They executed a little better than we did and they deserved it."
Parkway 13, St. Henry 7
Both teams piled up the runs in the game, but Parkway was able to get under control and move to the consolation final.
Berry went 3-for4 and Parkway picked up two hits each from Heckler, Covarrubius and Trevor Krogman to pace a 13-hit attack against a pair of Redskin pitchers.
Krogman allowed six earned runs in five innings but still pitched strong enough to get the win, striking out six. Tyler Brickley and Tim Shellabarger combined for two innings of one-hit, one run baseball to close things out. |
