In a game marked by quality at bats, St. Henry’s Austin Zimmerman’s double drove in a run in the fourth. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
One could make the case the cards were stacked against them. But St. Henry and coach Mike Gast never considered it, fighting through regional ‘host’ Patrick Henry to advance to Thursday’s title round.
Hamler, OH – Once you find it, Hamler, Ohio is not a bad place, and Kline’s Uptown Grill is a fantastic place for lunch.
Getting there, of course, means you have to conquer county road 5, for 5 F, maybe even 6…or Y, or M. Whiskey, tango, foxtrot! Obviously Henry County has no county engineer.
Lefeld Welding Supplies proudly sponsors high school sports and the Ohio State Buckeyes on Press Pros Magazine.com.
The point is, the deck is a bit stacked against you to find your way in or out of Hamler, and the St. Henry Redskins might have felt equally disadvantaged Wednesday afternoon to play the Division V regional semi-final in baseball at the home field of the Patrick Henry Patriots (17-8). Higher seeds, of course, are permitted to host first or second round games. But you don’t expect it for the regional semi-final.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA and Ohio State sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
“We weren’t going to use it as an excuse,” said St. Henry coach Mike Gast, Wednesday. And indeed, his #1 seed Redskins did not, playing through a large partisan crowd, talented Patrick Henry starting pitcher Mack Hieber (Ohio State commit), and the homefield advantage, ‘gritting’ out an impressive 6-5 win and advancing to Thursday’s title game with Seneca East, who eliminated Marion Local in the earlier game, 6-4.
“We knew we were going to have to be tough as nails,” said Gast, post-game. “Today was a test, and we haven’t had a lot of games where we haven’t led. But today we had to be tough for seven innings. And we took Max Delzeith out in the middle innings, and a younger Max might not have handled that as well. But he stayed in the game, mentally, and was ready to go for his teammates when we needed him in the seventh inning.”
Grit? Who really knows what it is, except in the competitive sense. Who the hell wants to lose? And that’s how St. Henry played from the outset.
Patrick Henry starter Mack Hieber struck out nine, but surrendered 6 runs on 9 hits in his five innings of work.
Mack Hieber is an impressive specimen on the mound. Armed with an upper-80s fastball, the 6’5″ righthander was simply a notch quicker than the average MAC fastball. But Gast and his coaches had turned the pitching machines up during practice this week and had the ‘Skins bats ready for heat.
They drew first blood with a Jake Schwieterman base hit in the top of the second, who then came around to score head-first on a base hit by second baseman Austin Kunk…1-0, St. Henry.
Max Delzeith isn’t 6’5″, and he doesn’t throw 90 miles per hour. But he came out strong. retiring the first five outs of the game until walking a hitter with two outs in the second. Then, strangely, he issued three consecutive wild pitches that scored Patrick Henry’s Jackson Meienburg with the tying run….1-1.
In the fourth St. Henry retook the lead on a two-out single by Carter Laguire, who stole second base, then scored on an RBI double by Austin Zimmerman…2-1, St. Henry. That lead lasted less than ten minutes.
In the bottom of the inning Patrick Henry took advantage of Delzeith not hitting his spots…a base hit, a sac bunt, an intentional walk of Mack Hieber, another single, and a two-out double, collectively amounting to three runs on a 4-2 Patriot lead that made the home crowd roar.
The Mr. Shoppe proudly sponsors the best in high school sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.
But in the fifth….
Through four innings Mack Hieber had struck out six, but made enough mistakes in the strike zone to allow St. Henry bats to time the fastball and become confident in their ability to drive it. Jack Huelsman started the fifth with a single to center. Tate Boeckman followed with a single through the infield. Drew Langenkamp walked and Owen Zimmerman lined a single to the alley to score Huelsman and Boeckman. One at bat later Jake Schwieterman worked the count on Hieber, finally getting an elevated fastball, and drove it to the gap in left to drive in two more…6-4, St. Henry.
A touch of relief…Hudson Schmitz came on in the fifth to pitch two innings of 1-run, 1-hit baseball.
“Jake had a fantastic at bat,” said Gast later. “Along with Austin Zimmerman, and let’s not forget Carter Laguire. I think he had a nine-pitch at bat before he got that base hit in the fourth.”
Now with the lead again, for whatever reason Delzeith was taken down in favor of reliever Hudson Schmitz, who immediately gave the ‘Skins a shutdown inning with a 1,2,3 fifth inning.
Jake Schwieterman’s two-run double in the fifth staked St. Henry to a 6-4 lead.
But the fifth inning would signal the end of Mack Hieber’s day – the six runs on 9 hits and 9 strikeouts – tempting one onlooker to ask, “How can they (St. Henry) strike out nine times and have nine hits, too?? In baseball reality, it’s the difference in throwing the fastball at the knees where strikeouts happen, or throw the fastball thigh-high, where base hits happen. Hieber was replaced by Aden Biederstedt, who, like Hudson Schmitz, would throw a scoreless top of the sixth.
However, Schmitz walked the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the sixth, and that walk eventually came around to score an unearned run to cut the margin to a run, 6-5.
Great sports, great food, and a great place to meet with friends. Come to McSobers after the game.
Biederstedt pitched a scoreless top of the seventh, and before anyone could get anxious over who might close and get the final three outs for St. Henry, Max Delzeith emerged to take the mound. In high school baseball the pitcher is allowed one re-entry. For the purist, it’s not real baseball, but in this case it couldn’t have worked out better for St. Henry.
Upon retiring the final out, Max Delzeith did not react…but simply tipped his hat to the cheering crowd.
Delzeith coolly retired the #9 hitter in the order with a popup to first base.
He then walked the actual leadoff hitter, Mason Jardine.
Aden Biederstedt lined out to center field and Jack Huelsman.
And centerfielder Cal Schroeder swung at a shoulder-high fastball for the final out. Delzeith hardly reacted, walking off the mound without emotion, only a slight tip of his cap to the cheering St. Henry bleachers. What he had done is one of the toughest feats in baseball – a pitcher that comes out of the game, with the risk of losing flexibility and mental focus, only to go back in three innings later to finish out the game, and do it successfully!
Technical Roofing proudly sponsors the Midwest Athletic Conference on Press Pros Magazine.com.
Jake Schwieterman scored the game’s first run on a single by Austin Kunk.
“I had struggled a little at the start of the game,” he added, later. “But when I came out of the game I got my head right, I stayed engaged in the game, and I was able to go back in and do what I do in the seventh inning.”
“Absolutely,” said Gast. “That is tough to do like that and I’m extremely proud of him. He battled his way through those four innings, and maybe we put him in a tough situation, but really proud of his effort today.”
And the at bats against Hieber, the environment, and having to fight back to retake the lead with those four runs in the fifth inning.
“If Jake Schwieterman is not the leader for us, he’s one of our leaders,” added Gast. “We had some really good at bats in that inning – Austin, Jake, Tate. So no shock that Jake would come through like he did with a very mature at bat to drive in those runs.”
Schwieterman finished the day with three hits, scored a run and drove in a pair.
“We got a lot of work this week in practice against speed,” he said, afterwards. “He (Hieber) is a good pitcher. But I stayed back on that pitch, hit it hard, and it found a gap. We’ve got a lot of good hitters in our lineup, but now it’s on to the next game tomorrow. We have to restart now.”
And while Schwieterman doesn’t pitch, he nonetheless had nothing but appreciation for his team’s relief work.
“Max did really good today…he was good at the start of the game, and then Hudson Schmitz came in and pitched well for us. But I know how hard that is to do what Max did at the end, to come back in like he did. He did a really good job.”
On a day that turned out to be tough for MAC baseball…losing efforts by Fort Recovery, Marion Local, Versailles, and Coldwater…St. Henry’s effort to win was all the more indicative of just how hard it is to win when the field is reduced to the final foursomes. Mike Gast wasn’t complaining, but he looked exhausted at game’s end, and yet with the prospect of one more game on Thursday to earn that trip to Akron and possibly a fourth team title for the school year, joining football, girls basketball, and bowling.
“We battled,” he said before picking up his stuff and heading for the bus and the trip down Road 5, or 6, maybe M and Y, and hopefully back to Mercer County.
“And it seems like we have new names everyday. It didn’t matter how we got it done. We had to be tough-minded against their pitcher, and we were able to do that. And to do it on their home field.
“But once we heard, we said ‘no excuses.'”
And no surprise.
Precision Strip, in Minster, Ohio, is proud to be the presenting sponsor of the OHSAA state finals on Press Pros Magazine.com.