{"id":16738,"date":"2024-05-25T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-25T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=16738"},"modified":"2024-05-27T11:21:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T15:21:19","slug":"knights-advance-to-championship-eliminate-bellmont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/25\/knights-advance-to-championship-eliminate-bellmont\/","title":{"rendered":"Knights advance to championship, eliminate Bellmont"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By DEAN JACKSON<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UNIONDALE \u2014\u00a0There are opportunities you create and opportunities that come your way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Norwell had both Saturday as they advanced to the IHSAA baseball Class 3A Sectional Championship, topping Bellmont 7-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/25mayNor7Bell3BASEballWrap.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>WZBD&#8217;s Ed Thurman wraps up Saturday&#8217;s broadcast of the sectional game between Bellmont and Norwell.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat&#8217;s&nbsp;what&nbsp;we&#8217;ve&nbsp;preached all year.&nbsp;That&#8217;s&nbsp;what&nbsp;we&#8217;ve&nbsp;played all year,\u201d&nbsp;Norwell Coach Christian Bohata explained.&nbsp;\u201cAny opportunity we get to move a guy over, we are going to do that and try to set ourselves up to be in the best position possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bellmont coach Aaron Baker said,\u00a0\u201cThey were\u00a0very,\u00a0very aggressive on the bases.\u00a0They took any advantage\u00a0that\u00a0they could take &#8211;\u00a0toss\u00a0in a couple of miscues on our part\u2014if we kept our errors down, we might have caught up with them, but that is not how it went today.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.decaturdentalin.com\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"418\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DDS_web-phone.jpg?resize=640%2C418&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DDS_web-phone.jpg?w=780&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DDS_web-phone.jpg?resize=300%2C196&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DDS_web-phone.jpg?resize=768%2C502&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Knights\u00a0face Mississinewa (17\u20135) Monday at Norwell. The Indians ousted Maconaquah 2-0 in the semi-final game. The first pitch\u00a0is scheduled\u00a0for 1 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bellmont (9-15)\u00a0was led\u00a0by Gavin Krull, who finished 1-for-2 with a home run and 2 RBI. Andrew James was 2-for-3 with a run scored. Dylan Velaz was 1-for-3 with a run scored. Beau Baker was 1-for-3 with an RBI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aidan Zimmerman\u00a0was tagged\u00a0with the loss. He worked five innings, allowing six hits and seven runs\u2014just two were earned. Layne LeMaster allowed one hit in one inning of work in the bottom of the sixth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Baker said he was proud of his\u00a0squad&#8217;s\u00a0attitude.\u00a0&#8220;It&#8217;s\u00a0not a seven-inning game &#8211;\u00a0It&#8217;s\u00a0seven one-inning games,&#8221;\u00a0he said.\u00a0&#8220;We continued to battle in each of those innings, unfortunately, we came up on the short end there. They won more innings than we did. But we\u00a0didn&#8217;t\u00a0give up. Our kids did not give up.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Norwell (18-7) delivered offensively, defensively, and on the mound. Cade Shelton struck out 17 batters, allowing five hits and giving up three runs\u2014all earned. Drew Graft finished the day 1-for-3 with three RBI. Korben Neuenschwander was 2-for-3 with two RBI.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vanwertcinemas.com\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"233\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/May-16th.jpg?resize=640%2C233&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/May-16th.jpg?resize=1024%2C373&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/May-16th.jpg?resize=300%2C109&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/May-16th.jpg?resize=768%2C280&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/May-16th.jpg?w=1099&amp;ssl=1 1099w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The win is the fourth straight for the Knights&nbsp;who&nbsp;needed extra innings to get past Peru in the opening round Wednesday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Knights wasted no time manufacturing a pair of runs in the first and second innings to go up 2-0.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bellmont cut it to 2-1. In the top of the fourth, James singled to right field; two batters later, he advanced to third on a walk and scored on a single to center by Beau Baker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Krull gave Bellmont a brief lead in the top of the fifth inning. He blasted a 325-foot shot to right field to score Velez.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGavin has been coming around, just hitting the ball solidly. He drove it, he\u00a0got outside and poked it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Norwell re-captured momentum in the bottom of the fifth, plating two runs on a double by Drew Graft, scoring courtesy runner William Case, Garry Riley and Noah Schamerloh. That gave Norwell a 5-3 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, the Knights built the opportunity with a Neuenschwander single, followed by a Riley walk. Zimmerman reached on a would-be sacrifice bunt to fill the bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u00a0are given\u00a0an opportunity like a bases-loaded\u00a0situation\u00a0you dig in. When you have your best hitter up,\u00a0you&#8217;re\u00a0not nervous at all.\u00a0There&#8217;s\u00a0no better spot to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Knights scored two more in the bottom of the sixth to put the game out of reach. Bohata says his squad knows what their job is.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They know the\u00a0standard,\u00a0we set back in the winter. I have told them this in our past two games,\u00a0&#8216;If we play our game,\u00a0we&#8217;re\u00a0hard to beat.&#8217; That is what we have done.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By DEAN JACKSON WZBD.com UNIONDALE \u2014\u00a0There are opportunities you create and opportunities that come your way. Norwell had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[44,13,15,46,26],"class_list":["post-16738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-baseball","tag-bellmont","tag-featured","tag-norwell","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/a-bellmont-hr-IMG_6014-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1726&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}