DANE FUELLING
WZBD.com
Through four no-hit innings, Morgan Andrews and the Heritage Patriots seemed to defy the odds, holding the Andrean 59ers scoreless and moving to within nine outs of a second semi-state title in school history, but the school’s magical run through this year’s state tournament ended when the Andrean bats finally caught up to Andrews’ fastballs and the 59ers won the Semi-State 8-2.
Having reached the 8 p.m. game with an improbable, extra-innings victory against Frankfort earlier in the day, Heritage and coach Dean Lehrman followed the game plan they had set at the beginning of the day: Andrews was off limits for game one and the team’s fortunes were going to rest solely on him in game two.Â
For four innings, he was magical, throwing his heart and soul into every pitch.
Heritage jumped on the board first with a run in the top of the second when Andrews singled to center after Jackson Bearman had been hit by a pitch, putting runners on first and second with one out.
Facing Andrean’s Garrett Benko, who will be pitching for St. Xavier next year, Thomson Keppel came up with the biggest hit of the game at that point, chopping a hit over the third baseman’s head and into left field, giving Heritage a 1-0 lead against the defending state champions.
Andrews seized on that momentum, striking out the next two batters to start the second and the Patriots seemed unfazed by Andrean’s pedigree.
Heritage showed great defensive prowess in the third inning, negating a leadoff walk to Bryce Harder by turning a slick double play, with Cam Rauner feeding Noah Redmon, the star of game one for the Patriots, for two outs.
Andrews ate up the excitement, fueling it into three straight strikes to Blake Kouder, who was frozen to end the inning. The senior threw with such tenacity that he lost the hat from his head with nearly every pitch he threw, distracting the Andrean bench but never losing his own personal focus.
Benko settled down after his second inning troubles, however, matching Andrews’ intensity pitch for pitch.
Andrews picked up his sixth strikeout in the fourth inning, ratcheting up the tension at Oak Hill with just nine more outs to get.
Andrean’s Benko seemed to get better as the game went on and he struck out the last two in the Heritage order to finish off the fifth. Benko finished with 11 Ks in his six innings of work.
The tone of the game changed quickly in the bottom of the inning. Jack Vogt singled to right on a full-count pitch and Noah Chase worked a walk after also reaching a full count.
With two on and none out, legendary Andrean coach Dave Pishkur went right to his bench, pulling his best bunt specialist off the pine and into the game. A year ago in the State Finals, Pishkur had done the same thing, bringing Angel Ramirez into the game at Victory Field with a runner on third and one out. Asking his pinch hitter to simply hit a fly ball into the outfield, Pishkur’s move paid off and the 59ers went on to last year’s 3A title.
Now asked to bunt, Ramirez immediately showed bunt, but pulled back twice to take ball one and ball two. On the next pitch, the game swung in Andrean’s favor and never returned for the Patriots.
Ramirez bunted down the third base line, well out of reach of catcher Tyler Redmon, leaving only Andrews to field the ball with Landon Lybarger staying home at third if the Patriots had the chance to get the lead runner.
There was no chance of going to third, and there was no chance to get Ramirez at first, but Andrews made the sidearm throw to first anyways, sailing it past first and toward the Heritage dugout.
Andrean scored to tie the game and then never looked back.
An infield single, a sacrifice fly and a steal of home all followed and Andrean ended the fifth inning with a 4-1 lead.
Heritage looked like they might mount a response in the sixth, but Caleb Abbott slid into first base on a close play, reaching on an error, then got back up and tried to take second, but was gunned down from foul territory for the second out of the inning.
Andrean did not stop, future Wabash College star James Kirk singled, then Andrean successfully executed another bunt without making an out and the Heritage infield committed three more errors, quickly pushing the Andrean lead up to 7-1. Abbott entered the game in relief of Andrews and could not find the strike zone, walking in a run to make it 8-1.
Facing an embarrassing ten-run ending to the game with the bases loaded, Abbott made a couple of good pitches and Noah Redmon handled a ground ball to short to get the third out and avoid any thought of ending the game early.
The Patriots did add a run in the seventh against Andrean reliever Charlie Sollars, who came into the game after Benko had reached his pitch limit. Benko had started the first game of the day and thrown 35 pitches against Norwell.
Singles by Jackson Bearman and Dalton White put Heritage in position to score. Coach Lehrman attempted to get as many players into the game with a couple of pinch hit cameos and his team made it 8-2 with a bases-loaded balk.
Sollars ended the game with back-to-back strikeouts, giving Andrean their tenth semi-state title in school history.
The Patriots held the top three batters in the Andrean lineup to just one hit, but it was a total team effort by the 59ers, who had a single RBI from five different players. They took advantage of four errors by Heritage.
Andrews finished with six hits allowed, all after the fourth inning, and five of his eight runs allowed were earned. He walked four and struck out six.
Abbott walked two in his inning of work.
Heritage finished the game with four singles. Bearman, White, Andrews and Keppel each reached with base hits.
Andrean will play Silver Creek in the Friday night game at Victory Field for the 3A State Championship.