| Lake baseball beats Otsego for district crown |
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| Written by By THOMAS SCHMELTZ/Sentinel Sports Writer | ||
| Sunday, 20 May 2012 04:31 | ||
Last Tuesday the Flyers clinched the Northern Buckeye Conference title in a 15-1 win over Rossford, and Saturday night at Defiance High School Lake won the Division III district title by holding off Otsego in a 5-4 victory. PHOTO GALLERY Lake (24-5) will play Bloom-Carroll on Thursday at Elida High School at 5 p.m. “It’s been a very good week,” said Lake head coach Greg Wilker. “We have eight seniors and they just want to keep playing. They’re excited to keep playing. They enjoy being around each other and it shows.” Otsego, which got on the board first, taking a 1-0 after the top of the second inning, never gave in, and the Knights had a chance to come back in the seventh inning. Otsego trailed 5-3 entering the seventh inning and had the bases loaded with just one out against Lake reliever Jayce Vancena, but the Knights were only able to scratch across one run, which came via a Hunter Donald sacrifice fly that scored Collin Austin. The sac fly gave Lake two outs in the inning and Vancena then struck out Drake Johnson on three straight fastballs to end the game. “I was thinking coming into the seventh to throw strikes,” Vancena said. “If (Otsego) put it in play, that’s great, our defense will make plays. I just planned on throwing strikes and letting the defense do their work.” “We just came up a little short,” Otsego head coach Aaron Myers said. “We’ve been battling through the whole tournament like that. Today ... we made a few mistakes and those mistakes might have cost us a little bit. “But we were right there with a chance to win, and we can’t ask the kids anymore than to stay in the game, and they did,” he added. Otsego finishes its season 14-13 overall. After Otsego took its early 1-0 lead in the second inning, Lake answered with three runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning. A single by Corey Hotmer to start the inning was followed by a strikeout, then back-to-back singles from Jake Materni and Thomas Nichols to load the bases for the Flyers. Cody Witt came up swinging on the first pitch and hit a chopper to the shortstop who tossed to second, which would have been the start of a possible double play, but the second baseman couldn’t handle the throw, allowing Hotmer to score, and no outs were recorded. Anthony Pratt drew a five-pitch walk, scoring Materni and then leadoff batter Josh Tantari reached on an error, scoring Witt. The elongated second inning was finally wrapped up when Casey Conine hit into a 1-6-4-3 double play, but the damage had been done. Lake’s first three hitters went a combined 0-for-9 in the game, but the final four hitters in the lineup accounted for five of the Flyers’ seven hits. “It’s been that way all year,” Wilker said. “We have different heroes every game. That’s just the way it fell today.” Otsego and Lake countered each other with one run a piece in the third inning, but the Knights cut the lead to 4-3 in the fourth, ending Materni’s day on the mound after four innings. The senior pitcher limited damage in the second, third and four innings, where he stranded a total of five Knight base runners. Materni, who was credited with the win allowed just five hits and all three runs were earned, while he struck out two and walked three. “He’s going to battle,” Wilker said of Materni. “He’s not going to over-power you, but he usually has a pretty good curveball and good control. Today his control wasn’t as sharp ... I think the heat got to him.” Lake turned to Vancena and he cruised through the fifth and sixth innings before working his way out of the seventh-inning jam. Vancena struck out five Otsego hitters in his four innings of work, while allowing three hits, one walk and an earned run. The Flyers got a huge insurance run from Hotmer, who drilled a hanging 2-0 curveball over the left-centerfield wall, giving Lake their 5-3 advantage. Hotmer finished 2-for-3 along with Materni and Nichols. Otsego compiled eight hits throughout the game, but were never able to get the key hit it needed in order to overtake Lake’s lead through the heart of the game. Austin and Hackworth were each 2-for-4 and Dustin Peper, Cody Downs, Donald and Johnson each added hits for the Knights. “I think we hit the ball hard, but we hit it right at (Lake),” Myers said. “Baseball is like that sometimes. Sometimes you find the gaps and sometimes you don’t. Tonight, unfortunately we didn’t find the gaps.” LAKE 5, OTSEGO 4 OTSEGO 011 100 1—4 8 3 LAKE 031 010 X—5 7 1 BATTING LEADERS HITS — (O) Austin 2, Hackworth 2, Peper, Downs, Donald, Johnson ; (L) Hotmer 2, Materni 2, Nichols 2, An. Pratt. 2B — (O) Hackworth, Donald; (L) An. Pratt. HR — (L) Hotmer. RUNS — (O) Austin 2, Downs, D. Vollmar; (L) Hotmer 2, Vancena, Materni, Witt. RBI — (O) Johnson, Downs, Peper, Donald; (L) Witt, An. Pratt, Tantari, Nichols, Hotmer. SAC FLY — (O) Donald. DP — (O) 1; (L) 1 . LOB — Otsego 8, Lake 4. PITCHING SUMMARY IP H R ER BB SO OTSEGO Hackworth (LP) 6 7 5 5 2 3 LAKE Materni (WP) 4 5 3 3 3 2 Vancena 3 3 1 1 1 5 |
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| Last Updated on Sunday, 20 May 2012 08:00 |
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Comments
It is even harder to understand how they only have a record of 13-12 with 6 of their 9 hitters batting .429 or better? Is that possible?
The Coach reported that 6 of his players are batting: .566, .529, .529, .461, .429and .429.
I am cerain that some of these players are Very Talented BUT: It was over 70 years ago that Ted Williams batted .406 in the Majors (and he was the LAST to do so) and now we read that an area High School Team has 6 of their 9 batters batting over .429 and are ONLY winning 50% of their games?
AMAZING? CONFUSING? & HARD TO IMAGINE!
You are TOTALLY missing the point. How does a team have 6 of 9 batters average .429 or Better and ONLY WIN 50% of their games?????
That is NOT even remotely possible or logical!
Someone, whether it be the score book keeper and/or Coach(or both) are NOT being honest about what a "HIT" is. If they have 6 of 9 players with those batting averages and ONLY win 50% of their games, something MAJOR is WRONG!!! (These same players were NOT listed among the top 10 in RBI's or RUNS SCORED)? That is NOT POSSIBLE! There may be some quality players on this team, BUT if you REALLY had 6 players (with legitimate batting averages) of these numbers, your team would be undefeated or close to it?
Is that Mathematically POSSIBLE????
If a Team had 6 players with LEGITIMATE Batting Averages of .429 or better, is it Possible to NOT have (EVEN ONE) of those same players listed in the RUNS SCORED or RUNS BATTED IN categories???
Is it possible to ONLY Win 13 Games and lose 12 Games with 6 of your 9 players batting .429 or better???
I would love to know what constitutes a HIT in this Coaches mind?
A Coach that reports FALSE/MADEUP statistics is demonstrating to his/her players that Lying and Cheating is Acceptable and IT IS NOT!
I am to the point that I think any Coach who obviously Lies and Cheats, like this, should be removed from their Coaching/Teaching duties.
Teachers/Coaches MUST be held to the HIGEST STANDARDS of Honesty and Truthfulness and a Coach who reports 6 of his 9 High School ball players are batting .429 or higher and ONLY has won 50% of their games is obviously not being Honest and should NOT be Coaching/Teaching our young people.
Bottom Line: Right is Right; Wrong is Wrong and Fair is Fair!
False Stats and Coaches who CONDONE and REPORT them have NO PLACE Coaching and/or Teaching our Young People!!!!
I was AMUSED to pick up today's paper and see that the Coach I reported at the beginning of this thread SUDDENDLY had a Totally different report this week vs. last week (and only played 2 games between these two Stat reports) ???
Check the Stats out that were reported to the Local Newspaper for 05-17-12 vs. 05-24-12.
NOTE The 5/17 report 6 players had Season Batting Averages of .429 or higher and after playing 2 Tourney Games, the 5-24-12 report, ONLY 1 PLAYER had a Season Batting Averages of .410 or higher???
Did the Coach decide to report the "Legitimate Batting Averages" this week? You decide what happened???
Below are the Reports for the 2 weeks:
Prep Baseball Leaders: 05-17-12
BASEBALL(Top 10)
Player, Team Avg.
Ots .566
Ots .529
Ots .529
Elm .514
Nort .492
Ots .461
Ots .429
Ots .429
BG .412
Eas .403
Spring Prep Leaders: 05-24-12
BASEBALL(Top 10)
Player, Team Avg.
Lak .578
Nor .507
Elm .507
Nor .440
Lak .435
NB .418
Eas .418
Lak .413
BG .412
Ots .410
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