After turning a double play to end the game, Bishop Watterson’s Michael Mulligan (left) celebrates with closing pitcher Ben Burleson. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Angie Greenwood)
While neither team was laser sharp on this day, Watterson and Jonathan Alder both showed they have the goods to make deep tournament runs in their respective divisions. Eagles first baseman Michael Mulligan ended this attractive tune-up game with a dramatic diving grab for a double play in the seventh.
Columbus, OH – Two of Ohio’s best teams did not always play their most sparkling baseball Saturday but the non-conference showdown nonetheless yielded exactly what their respective coaches sought when scheduling the game many months ago.
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“We pack the back end of the schedule with games like this to prepare us for the tournament,” Bishop Watterson sixth-year coach Jeff Boulware said after his Eagles came away with a nail-biting and dramatic 4-3 win over visiting Jonathan Alder at Tom Scholl Field.
“We know what Jonathan Alder brings to the table and I think we sort of envisioned that this would provide a district championship-type atmosphere and it sure did. The fact that it was so competitive and neither team played what you would exactly call a clean game will no doubt provide good lessons for both teams going forward. I’m taking the approach that this might be a springboard game for us.”
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Meanwhile, 17th-year coach Craig Kyle tried to put a frustrating – and rare – defeat by his Alder squad in the proper perspective.
“That’s baseball … what else can you say?,” Kyle said. “A loss is a loss and you can never have a great loss. But we schedule games like this to be our very best in the tournament and even though things didn’t turn out the way we wanted, I’m sure we’re going to take home a lot of things from today that can benefit us in the long run. Maybe it was a good thing to get a performance like this out of our system.”
Winner of a fifth straight Central Catholic League championship, Watterson (21-3) came in ranked third by MaxPreps and fourth by the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association in Division III. Boasting a .338 batting average, the Eagles have outscored their opponents by a margin of 197 runs to 63.
The five-time defending Central Buckeye Conference Kenton Trail Division champion, Alder (23-2) owned a consensus No. 1 ranking in Division IV. The Pioneers have scored 191 runs and yielded 53 with a lofty .325 team batting average and a staff earned run average of 1.80.
Jonathan Alder starting pitcher Jake Bauer winds and delivers.
Underscoring the levity of this titanic meeting (which was delayed two hours by a thunderstorm), both teams trotted out aces as Watterson started right-hander Luke Fivecoat (5-0, 0.27 ERA) and Alder sophomore left-hander Jake Bauer (6-0, 0.58 ERA).
Things took a weird turn right out of the box. Alder’s patented small-ball approach helped hasten three Watterson errors (the Eagles had made only 19 all season) in the first inning and Garrett Bauer’s RBI single gave the Pioneers a 1-0 lead.
“That’s the staple of our program, to put pressure on our opponents,” Kyle said. “We executed where we needed to there in the first but we had plenty of other opportunities that we squandered.”
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Caden Mangini led off the home first with a hustle double and the Eagles scored twice on behalf of two walks, a hit batsman, a wild pitch, a ground-out RBI and a sacrifice.
The Pioneers tied it 2-all in the second on a squeeze bunt RBI by Cashton Wheeler.
An energized Watterson dugout reacts as the Eagles close in on handing Jonathan Alder its second defeat of the season.
Things calmed down a bit until the fifth when Alder parlayed a single, a throwing error, a sacrifice bunt and a fielder’s choice into a run.
Aided by two walks a sacrifice bunt, Fivecoat hit an RBI single in the bottom half of the inning to pull Watterson even it 3-3.
In the home sixth, singles by Michael Wozniak and Connor Adkins-Davidson and a walk by Michael Mulligan put the Eagles in business. Two consecutive wild pitches by reliever Garrett Bauer scored the go-ahead run.
In the seventh, Alder got back-to-back one-out singles from Cam Martin and Wheeler off reliever Ben Burleson. On a 0-2 pitch, Silas Shoemaker smashed a screamer down the first-base line, but Mulligan made a spectacular diving catch, then crawled and extended his 6-foot-4 frame to touch the bag and double up the speedy Wheeler, ending the game.
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“Even with two strikes, I knew Ben would attack that hitter on the outside part of the plate, so I moved over a couple steps and it turned out to be huge,” said Mulligan, a Toledo signee who has converted from the outfield to adapt to his projected college position.
Watterson’s Michael Mulligan and Alder’s Brooks Pierce race to the first base bag on a sixth-inning fielder’s choice.
A Kenyon signee, Fivecoat allowed three hits over five innings with four strikeouts and one walk. He also collected two RBI.
“The early errors were not typical at all for us, but when I’m on the mound my mentality is just to focus on the next pitch,” he said. “I felt like my fastball and curveball were working pretty well but Alder is always dangerous the way they put the ball in play. This is a big win for us. It proved to us that we can beat a really good team even when things aren’t always going our way.”
Watterson’s season-high four errors were trumped by Alder’s 10 walks, a hit batsman and three wild pitches.
“Rule No. 1 of winning baseball is to not beat yourself,” Kyle said.
A whopping 101-10 over the past four seasons, Alder will attempt to avenge two straight regional defeats and chase its third state championship, and first since 2010.
Watterson, which fell to eventual state champion Licking Valley 2-0 in a regional semifinal last season, is aiming for the program’s eighth final four appearance and fourth title overall. The team features several standouts from the two-time defending Division III state football champion.
“I think we’ve got something special going on this year,” said Mulligan, whose father Mike who was a senior center fielder on Watterson’s first state champion in 1988 and went on to play at Ohio State. “We’ve got a great culture here and a lot of leaders.”
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