He knew the minute he touched third base…Andrew Elwer was about to score the winning run in the Blue Jays’ first-ever OHSAA title in baseball. (Press Press Feature Photos)
Their six-run second inning sealed the deal early. Junior righthander Andrew Elwer then put the bow on the championship package, pitching the Delphos St. John Blue Jays to their first OHSAA state title in baseball…in shutout fashion!
Akron, OH — Maddox Kroeger stood in the batter’s box with one thought and one thought only.
“Make my dream come true,” he thought as he waved his aluminum bat back and forth across the 7/17 Credit Union Ball Park home plate.
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Kroeger and each and every one of his Delphos St. John’s teammates were certain the game was all but over, the school’s first baseball championship nearly completed.
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All it needed was a ribbon and a bow.
The game wasn’t over. It was only the bottom of the sixth and St. John’s led Leipsic, 9-0.
What Kroeger wanted to do was end it abruptly, ignite an on-the-field celebratory explosion.
If the Blue Jays built a 10-run lead, the game was over — the run rule, the mercy rule.
So Kroeger, a left-handed designated hitter, stood in the batter’s box with St. John’s leading, 9-0. One more run and game over.
The Blue Jays had pitcher Andrew Elwer on second base with one out. He singled and reached second on a pickoff throwing error by Leipsic pitcher Julian Zuniga.
Braden Lindeman’s single drove in a run in the Blue Jays’ 6-run second.
“When Andrew got on and got to second, I just knew it was everything I ever dreamed of,” said Kroeger. “When you are a little boy it’s like, ‘Oh, a walk-off state championship.’ I got to live it and it’s awesome.”
It almost fizzled. Early in the count, he pulled a hard live drive to right field that kissed the ground a foot foul.
“That was real close,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, no, that was it.’ But I got ready again and did it. It was awesome to get it down. I couldn’t breathe, but it was the best feeling ever.”
So as Andrew Elwer skittered across home plate, punctuating the 10-0 win, hard-cheering folks from Delphos were euphoric.
It also was fitting that Andrew Elwer scored the game-ending run in stifling weather that took one’s breath away when exertion was necessary.
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And Elwer exerted more energy than anybody because he pitched a complete game and needed 94 pitches to cover the six innings.
It was a shutout, but it wasn’t a shutdown.
Tyce McClain reaches for the plate and the sixth Delphos run in the 6-run second.
Leipsic managed five hits and had one runner on base in five of the six innings.
“Actually, I don’t like working with runners on base,” he said, with a broad smile. “I don’t like going from the stretch. I’d rather go from the wind-up. It is just my fighting mentality that when somebody gets on I try to be tougher.”
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And his game-ending dash home?
“Touching home? It was awesome because it was something we worked so hard for,” he said. “And I was just glad to do it for the guys.”
Cam Elwer, who won Friday’s semi-final game over Calvert on the mound, played a solid shortstop for his brother Andrew in the championship final.
Andrew Elwer, whose brother Cam, won Friday’s semifinal game, was a part of a big second-inning that put this game in the trophy case quickly.
In fact, who wasn’t in on it. The first seven St. John’s batters reached base — five hits, two walks and a 6-0 lead.
The Blue Jays had scored a run without a hit in the first inning when leadoff batter Tyce McClain was hit by a pitch, took second on Cam Elwer’s ground ball, took third on a balk, and scored on Andrew Elwer’s sacrifice fly.
It was possible that one run was not enough, although it turned out to be enough.
Leipsic’s reputation is such that they were calling themselves ‘The Comeback Walk-off Kids.”
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The Vikings had come-from-behind in their last three tournament wins, the last two on walk-off hits by third baseman John Dewer.
In their semi-final win Thursday over the South Webster Jeeps, they trailed by 3-0, 4-2, 6-2 and 8-4 before scoring six runs to take a 10-8 lead. Then the Jeeps tied it, 10-10, before Dewer’s walk-off hit for an 11-10 win.
Insult-to-injury play…Leipsic’s best scoring opportunity was snuffed out in the sixth on a line drive caught by the pitcher…and a potential run on third doubled off the bag.
Delphos St. John’s would have none of that. The first seven runners reached base in the second, a six-run eruption.
Drake Fittro started it with a single and both Logan Duncan and Jackson Wiechart walked. Then came singles by Aidan Swick, Braden Lindeman and Tyce McCain. Cam Elver doubled for two runs and it was 7-0.
“When you are out there on the field (coaching third base), you don’t really know all that’s going on,” said St. John’s affable coach Jerry Jackson.
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“You’re in the moment, in the play,” he added. “Pitch to pitch, it changes. So, just being able to put the first seven on. . .I guess that’s pretty cool.”
It is actually what they call ultra-efficient that lead to ultra success and state championships.
It is the first state baseball championship for Delphos and many of the players were part of the school’s state basketball championship.
Because of the difficult competition in the Midwest Athletic Conference, slinking and slithering through the district tournament is more difficult than winning the regionals and maybe even the state.
“We’ve been in the district finals twice against (league rival) Minster and they beat us one year, 2-0, and one-year, 1-0,” said Jackson. “Then they went on to win the whole darn thing.”
This time, St. John’s won the whole darn thing and left no prisoners, outscoring its tournament opponents, 75-7.
And despite his team still playing baseball on basketball legs early in the season, Jackson kept telling his players they could wear the state crown.
What they’d waited for since basketball season…the Blue Jays’ second OHSAA state title in a span of three months.
“The nine guys I was waiting on (basketball players) are all winners,” said Jackson. “They never lost a game in basketball, so they know how to win, they know how to compete.”
It didn’t take the Blue Jays long to adjust their legs from the hardwood to the dirt and the grass. They won their first eight games, then were a bit yoyo-ish, up and down, en route to a 13-7 regular season.
“When those nine guys came to baseball, I told ‘em point blank before we started the season, ‘This team can win it all. It can.’”
And it did.
Also, was it fair that before the game there was a priest in an ankle-length black cassock in the outfield throwing blue-darters to the Blue Jays?
His name is Father Tom Hunyer and he was a running back at Toledo Maumee High School. And with what he displayed with his arm, it was clear that St. John’s had a God-given supporter and Leipsic didn’t have a prayer.
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