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The Wind....
"Old Glory" was getting a bit tattered in the upper left corner...from Saturay 35-mile-per-hour winds that buffeted anything hit in the air.
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04/27/09 - Sonny Fulks/1570wptw.com
The Tipp Red Devils turned out to be the inhospitable guests of the Ft. Loramie Invitational Tournament on Saturday. They won it!
And, they won it in what’s now become customary fashion…behind the brilliant pitching of the sophomoric duo of righthanders Braden Price and Craig Koehler.
Price threw a four-hitter over 6 1/3 innings in the Red Devils 4-1 semi-final win over Greenville, and Koehler topped that with a one-hit shutout over Ft. Loramie in the championship game.
Their performances came exactly one week to the day since Price and Koehler pitched a similar quinella over Northmont and Butler. But Saturday, Bruce Cahill was nothing short of speechless in his admiration for not only their competitiveness, but consistency.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he offered. “To come up here against good competition and pitch like they did. They threw strikes early in the count and they continued to pound the strike zone throughout the game. They went right after the hitters and these were very competitive teams. I’ve never seen a team as intense in competing in its own tournament as Ft. Loramie. This was a great experience. I hope we’re invited back.”
Well, maybe and maybe not on that issue. So dominant was Tipp’s pitching and defense that Braden Price was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. After turning the ball over to reliever David Moore with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning, he promptly went to the shortstop position and proceeded to start a dazzling 6-4-3 double play with second baseman Jordan Stum to close out Greenville and the ballgame.
For his part, Koehler admitted to being nervous in the championship game with Loramie, but you’d never have guessed.
“I was nervous,” he said afterwards. “At the beginning I was really nervous, but once I got started and we started making some plays I just concentrated on throwing strikes. My defense played great today and the wind really helped keep some balls in the park.”
Ah, the wind…a 25 to 40 mile-per-hour gale that blew from sunup to sundown. On the day, it kept no fewer than 7 titantic shots from leaving the yard. Loramie’s Jay Schulze simply crushed a ball in the morning semi-final with Covington that Buccs’ centerfielder Logan Wolach caught 20 feet from the center field fence. Later in the day,
Schulze would scald another one off Craig Koehler that became nothing but a harmless out.
Camden Sauls, Tipp’s power hitting left fielder entered the game as the Dayton area’s leader in home runs and rbis, but his mammoth shot to center in the second inning of the Red Devils’ semi-final game with Greenville was nullified by the same wind. Later in the championship game with Loramie, he was again brought back in the park by a zephyrous gust on a drive off Redskins’ pitcher Andy Schieltz.
Covington’s Nate Lavy was robbed in similar fashion, and balls that weren’t home run shots were none the less interesting for the fact of watching outfielders fight the wind in an effort to haul them in.
But the story of the day, while no in Loramie necessarily caught on to it, was the continuing maturation of a young and suddenly confident Tipp City team behind its young pitchers.
“I don’t know what the turning point has been,” admitted Bruce Cahill. “Maybe it was the game with Shawnee at 5/3 Field. I don’t know. We’ve lost twice to Bellefontaine, 4-2 and 4-3, and played well. But now we’re making plays we didn’t make before…we turned three double plays today…and our young pitchers are throwing like they’ve really grown up.”
In the Loramie dugout Bill Sturwold had a private meeting with his team, now 8-6 for the year, and struggling to put consistency on their resume as the tournament draw looms in two weeks.
“The Covington win was a really big win for us,” said Sturwold of Saturday morning’s 10-3 win over the previously 11-1 Buccs. “They’re a good program and a head-to-head win like today will turn some heads with voters in Division IV.
“But, we’ve got to compete better than we did today. It’s nice to play up a division with teams like Greenville and Tipp City, but we need to beat some of those teams, too. I give the kid from Tipp credit (Koehler). He threw a heckuva’ game and he didn’t give us many opportunities. Maybe I could have hit and run in the sixth when we had two men on and got something going…I don’t know. You look back now and see a lot of things you wished you’d have done differently.”
After last Saturday’s wins over Northmont and Butler behind the same two sophomore pitchers, Bruce Cahill was delighted to be above .500 and to see some light at the end of the tunnel from the lift given by the performances of Price and Koehler. And if winning that doubleheader was twice as nice compared to the early-season controversies over suspensions and overall lack of focus, what Price and Koehler did Saturday was nothing short of taking last week to the second power.
The final line score: Tipp won it with one run, five hits, played errorless defense and stranded nine men on base. Loramie was shut out on one hit, committed one error and left no one on base. Craig Koehler…you know, the one who was nervous…finished with a one-hit shutout, four strikeouts, no walks, and threw but 83 pitches.
“Regardless of what happens the rest of this year, you have to start believing in what these kids are doing and get excited about the future, even looking forward to next year,” smiled Cahill.
And hopefully, a return engagement to the Loramie Invitational. He’d like to be invited…again! |
