CANTON, Ohio – Indian Hill’s journey to a state baseball The championship ended on a night of missed opportunities Friday at Thurman Munson Memorial Stadium.
The Braves fell 4-3 to Sandusky Perkins in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division IV state semifinals. Indian Hill finished 24-9 for the season while the Pirates (22-9) advanced to Sunday’s championship game against Mentor Lake Catholic.
They fought," head coach Cary Daniel said. "Sixty-four teams and we were one of four teams here. We hate moral victories but the bottom line is that is something to be proud of.
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While junior ace pitcher Jim Liebel cruised through the first four innings without allowing a hit, the Braves squandered several key scoring opportunities against Perkins junior Kash Koch.
The Braves left four runners in scoring position in those four innings and had runners thrown out at third base and home plate.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Pirates manufactured their first run without a hit and held the lead from there.
Koch pitched for six innings, allowing five hits and four walks while striking out eight. He threw 117 pitches and was replaced by Braxden Martin after the Braves got the leadoff batter on in the seventh.
He mixed it up really well and kept our guys off balance," Daniel said. "Swinging late on curveballs. We couldn’t get the fastball in play, we fouled too many of those off. He did a really good job controlling the running game. He pitched an all-around game, throwing, controlling the running game and everything else.
The Braves had not been shut out all season and had been held to two runs or less four times during early losses in April.
They weren’t shut out this time, either, fighting back by scoring their first run on two walks, a wild pitch, and an error.
With nobody out and runners on second and third, Martin struck out Devlan. Ashton Graham grounded out to score a run. Pinch runner Max Hardy scored on a wild pitch to cut the deficit to 4-3 with Liebel at the plate representing the tying run.
Martin struck him out to end the game.
Liebel retired the first 10 batters he faced before the 11th, Dylan Crabtree, reached on an error. Liebel picked him off first with two outs to end the inning.
Perkins scored the first two runs of the game in the bottom of the fifth as the Pirates stole their first tally before collecting their first hit.
Liebel hit Talon Walton with a pitch to start the inning. Walton stole second and third. When he stole third, the throw by catcher Dylan Hartman went into the outfield and Walton scored the game’s first run.
One out later, Blake Parker singled up the middle for the Pirates’ first hit of the game, then he stole second. Two batters later, with Parker on third and Connor Smith on second after another steal, Sam Schweinfurth singled to left to plate Parker. Smith rounded third but left fielder Brady Drost threw him out with plenty of room to spare.
Perkins added a third run in the sixth on singles by Davie and Braxton Martin. Martin later scored after advancing to second on a wild pitch, stealing third, and capitalizing on a defensive error by the Braves, giving them a 4-0 lead.
That was enough to defeat Liebel, who had a 6-2 record and a 1.20 ERA coming in.
I can't say enough about Jim Liebel," Cary Daniel said. "He tried to carry us both offensively and defensively. He's been a rock all year long but his last few outings have just been spectacular. He went out there, gritted it out and gave us a chance but we didn’t give him enough support.
The frustrations for the Braves on offense started right away in the first inning.
Devlan Daniel led off with a single. With one out, he tried to advance two bases on a wild pitch but was thrown out at third.
In the top of the second, Luke Egnaczyk led off with a single. Drost walked. With one out, Derek Zee singled to center. The center fielder Bryce Davie threw out Egnaczyk at the plate, and eventually the Braves left runners at second and third.
In the top of the fourth, Liebel helped his cause by leading off with a triple to deep center field. His courtesy runner Simon Gall was left there after Koch struck out two batters around a walk and a short fly ball to right that wasn’t deep enough to score Gall.
In the fifth, Daniel doubled to left with two outs. Ashton Graham followed with a chopper up the middle that Walton made a nice play to field it on the run and throw for the out.
"It’s tough because that’s kind of been, in all of our losses our Achilles’ heel, leaving guys on base," Cary Daniel said.
Trailing 2-0 in the sixth, Liebel started the inning with a long fly to left which Grant Parker made a running catch to rob Liebel of his second extra-base hit of the game.
“We didn’t play our best game,” Daniel said. “We knew we had to execute to win and we didn’t execute. We didn’t get bunts down. We didn’t get a guy in from third base with no outs, and those things came to bite us. Hats off to Perkins. They found a way to just beat us the last two innings by playing small ball.”
Indian Hill has one senior on the roster in Trevor Brown, which means the rest of the lineup will have more chances to learn from this experience.
It was amazing," Cary Daniel said. "As coaches, this is our first time getting to this point. We didn’t have expectations of getting here at the beginning of the year, we felt we had a ton of things to work on and a very young team as far as varsity baseball. To get to this point was exciting. We feel we’re ahead of the curve.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 'Something to be proud of.' Indian Hill falls short in Division IV state baseball semis
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