Starter Hudson Schmitz pitched the first five innings, scattering two runs on four hits, while striking out seven. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Mike Gast’s St. Henry baseball team showed enough of the requisite skills necessary to win, taking down visiting Lima Shawnee on Monday, 7-2.
St. Henry, OH – Every high school baseball coach worth his salt has always made the following case for how to win.
One, have starting pitching that doesn’t beat you before you have a chance to win, yourself.
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Two, on offense you put the ball in play enough to make the opposing team make more plays on defense than you. Do that and they might make enough mistakes to give you the game.
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And three, play with instinct. Anticipate the next play before it happens. Act like it’s happened before. Then react as if you know what to do – like you’ve seen the elephant!
Mike Gast’s St. Henry Redskins showed a bit of all three Monday night in an impressive-enough 7-2 win over Lima Shawnee at the Wally Post Complex in St. Henry.
One, senior starter Hudson Schmitz survived a shaky first inning to scatter 2 runs and four hits over five innings, striking out seven, to make the most of a generous offensive contribution from his own batting order.
Two, the Redskins batting order scored single runs in each of the first three innings, added four more in the fourth, and finished with 7 runs on 9 hits while leaving six men stranded on base.
Three, in a ‘vernal’ example of what Gast calls an amazing year by St. Henry’s senior class, the ‘Skins overcame a slow start to show a mature, comeback against a team (Lima Shawnee) that has its own qualities and experienced leadership. For just their second game of the season, St. Henry could count Monday’s win as a good win..a telling win.
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“Hudson Schmitz has a lot of movement on his pitches, and he commanded his fastball today,” Gast said, afterwards. “He mixed things up enough today to keep guys off balance. He hung a pitch in the first inning that got hit hard, but he came back from that. They didn’t have a ton of hard-hit balls against him after the first inning.
“Hudson’s grown up a lot, and two years ago he would not have handled that first inning as well as he did today. He showed poise there in the first, and then came back to pitch well through five innings on a day when he didn’t have his best stuff.”
Tate Boeckman follows the flight of his line drive double in the second to tie the score at 1-1.
Impressively, his offense didn’t leave him hanging for long.
In the bottom of the first St. Henry bumped Shawnee starter Luke Menke for a run on an infield error and a run scoring double by first baseman Jake Schwieterman.
In the bottom of the second St. Henry touched Menke again for a walk and a run scoring double by Tate Boeckman.
In the top of the third Shawnee tied the score at 2-2 with run on a base hit, a stolen base, and a two-out single.
In the bottom of the third St. Hank scored on a dropped fly ball and two-base error in the outfield and a run scoring single by Schwieterman, the second of his three hits for the game.
St. Henry shortstop Austin Zimmerman comes up firing during Monday’s 7-2 win over Lima Shawnee.
Then leading 3-2, St. Henry put Shawnee away in the bottom of the fourth, scoring four times on a pair of bunts and a walk to load the bases…then hard contact by Owen Zimmerman and Schwieterman to clear the bases, plus one. St. Henry led, 7-2.
The story then became the settling in of Hudson Schmitz, who looked every bit like a #1 starter in a regional tournament game – not his best stuff – but command of what he had to strike out seven, while walking one. He was efficient.
And St. Henry’s offense was persistent enough to keep the pressure on Shawnee, forcing the Indians repeatedly to keep themselves close with their defense. They would commit four errors, walk three, and hit a batter. St. Henry won the efficiency battle.
Boeckman and Schwieterman led St. Henry with three hits each, accounting for 6 of their 9 hits for the game.
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“We put the ball in play,” added Gast. “And I think there were some times there early in the game when we were trying to give it back to them. We weren’t as good as we needed to be behind Hudson tonight, but we hit enough, we did some things with the bunt game to allow us to score and be in a good position.”
Were they as good as they’re going to be? No, but how would you be after two games (St. Henry opened with a win over Covington last week).
St. Henry’s Owen Zimmerman scores on a wild pitch during the ‘Skins’ four-run fourth inning.
But the MAC Conference is going to be interesting competitive gauntlet with St. Henry, Coldwater, Versailles, Parkway, Fort Recovery, Minster and New Bremen.
“And don’t forget Delphos St. John,” cautions Gast. “Elwer’s good on the mound and they have talent at other positions. There really are no bottom-tier teams in our league.
“But our senior class has been amazing all school year. They’re really a great group of kids, great leaders, very selfless people, and it’s going to be a fun year.”
And like every area team, they need to play, depending on the weather. Scheduled to play at Anna tomorrow, the forecast later in the day may prove to be prohibitive. But that doesn’t concern Gast at this point.
It has been an amazing year, and his lineup is sprinkled with players who’ve already seen the elephant in both football and basketball.
All that remains, then, is to pitch, make opponents make more plays than you have to, and lean on that elephant.
Do those three things…and anything’s possible.
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