David Clune pitched St. Henry to their eighth win in the last ten games, the Redskins winning Thursday with 5 runs in the eighth inning. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
A pitching dual through the seventh, it took eight innings for the St. Henry Redskins to finally break through and score an impressive 8-3 win over Versailles Thursday in extra innings.
Versailles, OH – St. Henry coach Mike Gast shrugged a bit as he talked about his team’s sudden turnaround.
Last year’s Division IV state semi-finalists struggled out of the gate, lost five of their first eight games, and looked like anything but a team that would challenge for the MAC title come May.
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But since…Gast’s Redskins have won eight of their last ten, including Thursday’s impressive extra inning contest over Versailles (17-4, 6-1 in MAC), 8-3, snapping the Tigers’ 11-game win streak…a game tied 2-2 through seven, the product of a who-blinks-first pitching dual between Versailles’ AJ Griesdorn and St. Hank’s David Clune.
“Honestly, the start of our season was a bit rough,” said Gast. “But we’ve won eight of our last ten, we’re starting to see the ball well, carrying a lot more confidence at the plate, and I told them I was proud of them today because we didn’t look real good at the plate in the middle of the game. Good pitchers (AJ Griesdorn) can do that to you. But we were able to run his pitch count up, and that definitely helped when we got to the eighth inning.
“We were able to have a more mature approach and get over some of the disappointing at bats that we had earlier in the game. We had some guys really come through in big spots.”
Versailles catcher Matt Subler tags out St. Henry runner Michael Gonzalez on a bang-bang play in the fourth inning.
Starting at the beginning…in the top of the first. St. Henry scored first on Griesdorn before he settled in – a hit batter, a sac bunt, a walk, and a base hit by Lucas Clune.
In the meantime St. Henry pitcher David Clune settled in first, allowing a run 0n two hits through the first five innings – an unearned run by Ben Subler in the top of the third, Versailles taking advantage of a throwing error by third baseman Devin Delzeith. Clune held grimly to that 2-1 lead until the seventh, when Versailles tied the game on a leadoff walk to Subler, and a run scoring double by Joel Gehret, which effectively ended Clune’s day – 2 runs on 3 hits, a strikeout and 4 walks, along with a hit batsman.
Reliever Owen Zimmerman came on to retire the final out, then pitch the Redskins through a scoreless seventh.
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Ironically, Versailles could make the age-old lament of not getting a timely hit when they needed it…as well as running themselves out of a pair of run scoring opportunities in the third and fourth innings. And in the bottom of the seventh, after a one-out double by Subler, AJ Griesdorn came to the plate with an opportunity to end it with a base hit, Subler representing the winning run. Griesdorn hit a two-strike fastball hard…as hard as any ball had been hit all day…but right at Dom Schwartz in right field who flagged it down for the final out.
Ouch…Versailles’ Matt Subler takes one off the shoulder in Thursday’s 8-3 loss to St. Henry.
Tied at 2-2, St. Henry came to the plate in the top of the eighth with Griesdorn’s pitch count well over a hundred. Hayden Boeckman greeted him with a leadoff single to right. Lucas Clune followed with another single, a sac bunt to put runners on second and third…eventually bringing pinch-hitter Drew Bergman to the plate. Just off the bench, Bergman wasted no time in lining a single to right center to drive in Boeckman with the go-ahead run, the final chapter in Griesdorn’s day. But hardly the end of St. Henry’s inning.
Feeling some of that confidence that Mike Gast talked about, they would send ten hitters to the plate, score 6 runs on 5 hits, and hand Versailles an 8-2 deficit for their final at bat in the bottom of the eighth.
Zimmerman, a sophomore, would stumble a bit, a pair of hits by Ross Francis and Matt Subler to lead off, and a walk before retiring an out. But eventually he found his mojo to retire the side, giving up a run on 2 hits…striking out Michael Osborne for the game’s final out.
You have to pitch, like David Clune did, to have any chance for a late-season run for the league title and another tournament run. Thursday marked the first earned run he’d given up all year, in thirty innings of work previously.
You have to have some timely hits, like Drew Bergman delivered off the bench…and 5 of them in the winning eighth inning.
Hayden Boeckman scores the go-ahead run in the eighth on a pinch-hit single by Drew Bergman.
And you have to have some defensive plays like those delivered by Hayden Boeckman in center field, and Dom Schwartz in right when he caught what would have been the game-winning hit off the bat of AJ Griesdorn in the seventh.
“The team’s had my back all year,” said David Clune, afterwards. “No matter what, they’re always making plays. Today was a huge win for our team, and now we want to keep our energy high and move farther and farther into the season.”
The unlikely hero, Drew Bergman, struggled to find words to describe his moment of contribution. He would rather play than talk about it, obviously.
“That’s the best hit I’ve had in high school baseball,” he agreed. “I’ve struggled this year, but today I came back when we needed it most.”
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Clune would call it a confidence builder.
Mike Gast would call it a moment of pride for the fact of gutting it out, denying Versailles the run in the seventh, until they could finally get that timely hit in the eighth.
And Drew Bergman had trouble calling it anything, except his best moment as a high school baseball player that came when his team needed it the most.
And by the way, after the 3 and 5 start, they’re now 11-8 for the season, and 6-1 in conference play.
“We’re fortunate to have some pitching,” added Gast.
They’re going to need it with Coldwater and Minster on the horizon in a matter of days. But they didn’t seem concerned at the moment, Thursday, enjoying their hard-fought win.
Like Drew Bergman, it might have been their best moment of the season.
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