Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Both Clay and Lake earned district championships in their respective divisions recently, and both were slated for regional play the week of Monday, June 1. We’ll have those results in next week’s edition of The Press.
CLAY'S PITCHING DOMINATES
Clay’s 1-2 combination of sophomore pitchers, Landon Echelberry and Bryce Besgrove, recorded back-to-back shutouts in Division II district play at Bowling Green’s Carter Park on May 26 and 28.
Echelberry took his turn first in the district semifinal, producing a 1-0 complete-game shutout win over St. John’s in a pitching duel with Jake Tuori. Echelberry struck out eight and walked only one, while Tuori allowed two hits and one walk with two strikeouts over six innings.
Echelberry, however, had one of those hits, which was an RBI double to deep left center in the fifth, which scored Alex Goetz, who had walked with one out. Chase Vriezelaar’s double provided Clay’s other hit.
In the district final, Clay (21-8) saw Besgrove slice through the St. Francis lineup for a no-hitter over 108 pitches. The lefty struck out five batters and allowed just three walks. Meanwhile, the offense racked up one run again, this time on five hits.
The lone, game-winning run in another 1-0 victory came in the second inning on an RBI single from Aiden Berryman, scoring Brannan Vargas, who had walked with two outs. An error extended the inning after the free pass, and Berryman made them pay.
Besgrove retired the final 11 batters he faced, which included pitching out of his only jam in the fourth. With one out, Cole Porvaznik walked and Charlie Pastula reached on an error. However, a strikeout and a pop out ended the inning, and Besgrove delivered 1-2-3 innings the rest of the way.
Last year, the Eagles defeated St. John’s in the district final and advanced all the way to the regional final, where they fell to Amherst Steele, who made it to the state championship game before falling to Anthony Wayne. This year, though, there will be a new state champion as the Generals lost in the district semifinal to St. Francis at Carter Park.
COMEBACK KIDS WIN ANOTHER DISTRICT CROWN
Lake earned a pair of come-from-behind wins over Ottawa-Glandorf and Bellevue in the district tournament, which helped the Flyers advance to regional play for the second time in three years.
In the semifinal, Ottawa-Glandorf scored four times in the second inning to take the early lead, but Lake answered with four in the third and three more in the seventh. The Titans pulled within one with two in the sixth, but Lake answered with two more in the bottom half to pull out the 9-6 win.
Jack Sobczak earned the win on the mound for Lake, allowing six runs (two earned) with two strikeouts. Gavin Kohlhofer, Jace Ayers and Gavin Hrebic each had multi-hit performances, while Grady Snoderly, Ayers and Mason Csortos had two RBIs apiece. Riley Lawniczak and Hrebic scored two runs each. Sobczak’s RBI single in the fourth provided the go-ahead run.
In the final, the duo of Csortos (3-for-4, 3 RBIs, R) and Hrebic (3-for-3, 2 RBIs) combined for six hits as Lake came back from a 5-1 deficit.
Down four through two and a half, Lake scored twice in the third on a two-run single from Csortos. In the fifth, Hrebic’s two-run single tied the game.
Bellevue immediately responded with a run-scoring double in the top half of the sixth, but Kaiden Cousino’s RBI double to left tied the game and an RBI single from Csortos provided the winning runs in a go-ahead, sixth-inning rally.
Csortos picked up the win on the mound in relief, striking out a pair while allowing three hits and two walks, along with one run, over four innings. Snoderly struck out one over the first three, while three of the runs he allowed were unearned.
Lake, which was the state runner-up two years ago, has now appeared in the district championship game in each of the past three seasons.
