HAMLER \u2014 Elmwood jumped out to an early lead, taking advantage of timely hits, Evergreen errors and aggressive baserunning to score a pair of runs in the first inning and three more in the second.<\/p>\n
That was plenty of support for Royals\u2019 starting pitcher Zack Gross, who pitched a complete-game, two-hitter to get the win, as Elmwood defeated the Vikings 8-1 in the Division VI regional championship game Saturday afternoon at Patrick Henry High School.<\/p>\n
The Royals (22-8) advance to the state tournament for only the second time in school history, and the first time since Elmwood finished state runner-up in 2007.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked a lot before the season started about bringing back \u2018Country Baseball,\u2019\u201d said second-year Elmwood baseball coach Matt Malecha. \u201cOur former coach, Kyle Reiser, preached that style of baseball and we wanted to restore that. It\u2019s a credit to the seniors on last year\u2019s team that started us down this path.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Royals, with 10 seniors on the roster, will face Hartville Lake Center Christian in the state semifinals Saturday at Canton\u2019s Thurman Munson Stadium at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
Elmwood grabbed the early lead, as the Royals\u2019 first three batters \u2014 Gross, Ryken Zeigler and Colton Bradford \u2014 all singled. Gross attempted to steal third with Bradford at the plate, and the throw went into left field, allowing Gross to score the game\u2019s first run.<\/p>\n
Bradford\u2019s single scored Zeigler for a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The Royals led off the second inning with a walk and a one-out single by Aiden Marsh. Cayden Stewart laid down a bunt single to score a run and Gross followed with a sacrifice fly to centerfield.<\/p>\n
Evergreen, throwing to the cutoff man, attempted to throw the runner at second out at third, but the throw was wild, allowing another run to score for a quick 5-0 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is our style of baseball,\u201d said Malecha. \u201cWe want to put the ball in play, become aggressive on the bases and see what happens. Good things happen when we start to play our style of baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey out executed us,\u201d said Evergreen baseball coach Chris Owens. \u201cIn these tournament games, the team that gets out to a lead first tends to finish first. That is what we had been doing. Give credit to them for out executing us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vikings scored a run in the fourth inning, as Bryce Bolger was hit by a pitch with one out and Chris Shrader followed with an RBI triple to cut the lead to 5-1.<\/p>\n
Gross came back to strike out the next batter and get the final out on a liner to second base.<\/p>\n
The Royals added three runs in the bottom of the inning, as Gross had an RBI single and Zeigler and Bradford each had sacrifice flies to make it 8-1.<\/p>\n
Evergreen loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth inning without a hit, but Gross again came up big, getting a swinging third strike on a high fastball to end the threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a bulldog,\u201d said Malecha of Gross. \u201cHe takes the baseball whenever we give it to him, and he has pitched in some big situations. He isn\u2019t afraid to pitch to contact, but he also got some big swing and misses today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gross allowed one run on two hits and three walks, while striking out nine to earn the win. He also led the offense, going 3 for 3 with two runs and two RBI from the lead-off spot in the order.<\/p>\n
Zeigler and Stewart each had two hits and an RBI for the Royals.<\/p>\n
Troy Manz took the loss for the Vikings, going the distance and allowing eight runs on 10 hits and a walk. He struck out three.<\/p>\n
Evergreen, which was making its first ever appearance in the regional finals, made five errors in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team, especially since the start of the league season, found ways to win,\u201d said Owens. \u201cYou saw that quiet confidence during this tournament run. It\u2019s always hard when a season like this comes to an end, you want to be playing in that last game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a great season,\u201d added Owens. \u201cNo one would have thought we would be standing here on June 7 talking about Evergreen baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vikings end the season with a record of 15-11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMLER \u2014 Elmwood jumped out to an early lead, taking advantage of timely hits, Evergreen errors and aggressive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,2336,2351,5,2316,2313,2340,2330,2333,2334,19,2310,2328,2304,2308,4,2305,2303,2322,2307,185,2512,2350,2338,2311,2312],"class_list":{"0":"post-90108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-ball-games","11":"tag-base-on-balls","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-baseball-competitions","14":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","15":"tag-baseball-positions","16":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","17":"tag-grass-field-surfaces","18":"tag-lawn-games","19":"tag-major-league-baseball","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-mlb-playoffs","26":"tag-mlb-postseason","27":"tag-october-sporting-events","28":"tag-outdoor-sports","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-strike-zone","31":"tag-strikeout","32":"tag-team-activities","33":"tag-team-sports","34":"tag-turf-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}