Senior Cam Elwer pitched a complete-game 6-hitter to knock out #1-ranked Tiffin Calvert in a Division VII state semi-final game. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
Cam Elwer made a quick 550-mile trip to join his Delphos St. John’s baseball teammates in Akron and pitched the Blue Jays into the Ohio state Division VII baseball championship game, beating a Tiffin Calvert pitcher who had never lost a game.
Canton, OH — What do you do when your best pitcher is 550 miles away and you’re assigned to play the recognized best Division VII baseball team in the state of Ohio?
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Cam Elwer averaged 30 points a game last winter, leading Delphos St. John’s to the state basketball championship, and it won him a scholarship to Furman University.
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And that’s where he was Thursday, in Greenville, S.C., on the Furman campus, dribbling and shooting basketballs for four days or so.
But Delphos St. John’s needed him, needed him desperately as the best person they have throwing baseballs from the pile of dirt and clay rising in the middle of the infield at quaint and stark Thurman Munson Memorial Park.
St. John’s was to play Tiffin Calvert, 28-2 and the No. 1-ranked D-VII team. And pitching for Calvert was Logan Ritzler, 17-0 for his career for the Senecas.
So Elwer hopped an airplane Thursday afternoon and arrived at his team’s hotel headquarters in Akron at 11:30. He was roused out of bed at 6 a.m. so he could throw a ball about 15 % the size of a basketball.
And did he throw it? Did he ever?
He threw 112 pitches during a complete game, pitching Delphos St. John’s to a 5-3 victory in the D-VII semifinals.
Jackson Wiechert’s fifth inning triple cracked the code of Calvert pitcher Logan Ritzler and led to a three-run inning.
For four innings, he pitched a no-hitter and issued one walk while striking out five. Fatigue crept in eventually, and hit-happy Calvert began squaring him up with St. John’s seemingly in command, 5-0.
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Calvert banged two singles in the fifth, but no run damage. But in the sixth the Senacas spliced together three hits and drew two walks and scored a pair of runs to cut it to 5-2.
And in the seventh, opposing pitcher Logan Ritzler opened the inning with a triple. Vicenzo Lyons drilled one between shortstop and third base. Cam Elwer’s brother, Andrew Elwer, made an astounding backhanded stop.
He threw out Lyons as Ritzler scored to make it 5-3.
Third baseman Jackson Wiechart, who had a triple to start a St. John’s three-run eruption in the fifth, fumbled a ground ball with one out in the seventh.
Elwer then struck out Charlie Palm and the game ended on Connor Moyer’s hard line drive to center field.
It was obvious the last three innings that travel fatigue was chasing Elwer.
“Fatigue? For sure, it has been a long week,” he said. “Got in late last night, had to get up early, but there is no excuse there. I got the job done.”
Indeed, he did, lifting his record to 8-1 and St. John’s record to 19-7.
“I told him I had confidence in him (Elwer),” said Coach Jerry Jackson of his struggles in the sixth inning. “They’re the guys putting in the effort and I’m so proud of ’em.”
Of his brother, Andrew’s backhanded stop in the seventh inning that cut into the middle of Calvert’s rally, Cam said, “Oh, gosh. That was the best play all day. It 100 percent cut their rally off.”
And third baseman Wiechart’s error in the seventh had him holding his breath.
“My heart was pounding and I just wanted to make a play and I guess that’s why I made the error,” said Wiechart, whose early-game triple far overshadowed his minor miscue.
Said coach Jerry Jackson, enjoying the best of his 12 season, “I have so much confidence in these kids. What we’ve put together the second half of this season, different lineups, putting different guys in trying to figure out where everybody fit in.”
The Blue Jays began the season with seven straight wins, then lost four of five and seven of 12 before latching on to their current of seven straight wins, one shy of a state title.
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“We’ve settled in the last three or four weeks,” said Jackson. “The lineup and the pitching staff has been great. I’m excited. It’s fun to watch, even though I’m not participating, I’m just guiding these guys.
“They’re the guys putting the effort in and I’m so proud of ‘em,” he added.
Second baseman Tyce McClain supported the effort with this running catch in the fourth inning.
Calvert is looking for a lurking black cat or the step ladder one of them keeps walking under because they are suffering The Curse of the Semifinals.
The Senecas have been to the state semifinals four times since 2022 and lost in the semis all four times.
Calvert pitcher Logan Ritzler had never chewed on the foul and bitter taste of defeat — unhittable and 17-0 for his career.
But he contributed to his own downfall in the first inning when St. John’s leadoff hitter Tyre McClain reached when Calvert second baseman Branyan Coleman fumbled a ground ball.
McClain reached second on a wild pitch, took third of Cam Elwer’s ground ball and scored on Ritzler’s second wild pitch of the inning.
And that was it.
From there it was a contest to see who could strike out the most hitters — Calvert’s Ritzler or St. John’s’ Elwer through four innings.
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In fact, it was a double no-hitter through four innings and one wondered if Calvert’s Ritzler was en route to being able to say, “I threw a no-hitter in the state semifinals and lost.”
After the first inning through the fourth, only one St. John’s runner reached base against Ritzler, a one-out walk in the third. And he had six strikeouts.
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But it all fell apart for him in the fifth when the St. John’s bats began pinging at ear-splitting decibels.
The Blue Jays scored three times to push its advantage to 4-0.
It began with a one-out triple to right field by Jackson Wiechart. He scored on Adrian Swick’s single to left to make it 2-0.
Swick stole second and scored when number nine hitter Braden Lindeman scorched and sizzled a triple of the wall in left field to make it 3-0.
Lindeman scored when Calvert shortstop Charlie Palm air mailed a throw to first for an error and it was 4-0.
St. John’s added a run in the sixth when Calvert right fielder AJ Silverman misplayed a single by Logan Duncan into a hit and an error that put Duncan on third. He scored on Wiechart’s single to make it 5-0,
That was the end of Ritzler, the first time during his career he was knocked out of a game. His error and two others by teammates made another long and difficult state tournament day for Calvert.
But Calvert wasn’t done, perhaps remembering what they did in a regional tournament game against Cortland Maplewood. Calvert gave up five runs in the first inning, but not only came back to win, the Senecas run-ruled Cortland, 16-5 in five innings.
Cam Elwer considers the job ahead of him as he waits to record the final three outs.
In fact, Calvert run-ruled four of its five opponents, 17-0 (5 innings), 11-0 (5 innings), 16-5 (5 innings), 10-0 (5 innings). And its other tournament win was by 9-0.
So it got scary in the sixth when Calvert’s bats began reverberating against Elwer — three hits and two walks for two runs.
And Elwer had to work his way out of a bases loaded and two outs mess with his lead down to three runs.
Branyan Coleman grounded to second and St. John’s second baseman juggled and bobbled the ball before throwing out Coleman at first on a bang-bang-bang-bang play, by a millisecond and leave the score at 5-2 after six.
Then came the seventh with Cam Elwer still standing and and he made certain Delphos St. John’s is still standing in its quest to annex the state baseball championship trophy to the state basketball hardware already in the school’s trophy shelves.
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