TIFFIN — Eastwood’s improbable postseason run came to an end Saturday afternoon in the Divison II
regional semifinals against Oak Harbor.
The Eagles (8-18) fell behind early but rallied to tie the game at five in the top of the seventh inning,
only to be heartbroken when the Rockets’ Joey Mallernee had his second consecutive walk-off hit to give
OH the 6-5 win at Tiffin University.
“Those kids are gritty, gritty kids,” Eastwood head coach David Barkholz said. “They have eight wins and
… just to be down like that is tough. It’s very easy to throw our hat in after game six of the year
and not one kid ever did. It’s a credit to them, they’re great kids. They battled their hearts out and
they just ran out of a bullet today.”
After trailing 5-3 heading into the seventh inning, the Eagles started their rally when Johnny Zellers
bunted for a hit.
A walk by Ryan Mang followed by sacrifice bunt from Zach Coffield put both runners into scoring position,
but Skylar Dierker couldn’t capitalize as he flew out to OH’s shortstop, who made an over-the-shoulder
catch behind second base for the second out.
Then Jake Schmeltz delivered his third hit of the game, a fly ball to right field, which fell just in
front of the diving right fielder, allowing the two runs to score and the game to be tied at five.
“They know the game is going to present an opportunity and they took advantage of it,” Barkholz said.
“That’s what they’ve done in the past six or seven games and I’m extremely proud of them.
“Our big thing is, we put a clock up in the locker room and we say ‘time just keeps going.’ Obviously, we
want to score the runs, we want to win the game, we want all good things to happen, but the fact of the
matter is we’re not always going to.”
But almost fittingly, as the Eagles have lost so many times this season in the final at-bat, the Rockets
(14-8) came through in the bottom of the seventh.
Justin Faykosh, who relieved Eastwood’s starter, Nick Vespi, after just 32?3 innings got out of a
bases-loaded jam in the fourth and then cruised through the fifth and sixth.
The seventh inning was a whole different story.
OH delivered two straight hits to open the home half of the seventh, and then Mallernee, delivered his
late-game heroics with a single to left field, which scored Phil Bryant from second base.
“We had a pretty good approach on Vespi. He was a little bit wild so we took a lot of pitches and made
him work real hard,” OH head coach Rob Schimmoeller said. “Then (Eastwood) brought in Faykosh and it
took us a couple of innings to adjust to that because he is quite a bit slower (than Vespi). We had to
keep our weight back a little bit better and the second time through the order seeing him, we finally
adjusted to that.”
Trailing 4-0 in the fourth, Kris Hayward put the Eagles on the board with a two-run home run to left
field, but the Rockets answered with a run in the bottom of the inning.
Eastwood, which came into the game batting just .201 as a team, had nine hits in the contest. Schmeltz
was 3-for-4 with two runs batted in and a run scored and Alex Keyes was 2-for-3 with one run scored.
Vespi, a freshman who is the team’s pitching race, struggled nearly the entire time. He threw 94 pitches
in his 32?3 innings. He entered the game with a 2.98 earned-run average and 72 strikeouts in 511?3
innings pitched, but never seemed to have found his control against Oak Harbor.
Vespi walked six batters and struck out just four, and four of the five runs that scored were batters who
walked in their at-bats.
“He wasn’t getting some of the calls that he’s used to getting because his stuff was just better stuff
that what maybe (the umpire) has seen before,” Barkholz said. “Nick’s stuff … it moves. Everything
just kind of darts and moves and all of the sudden. It was even fooling (the umpire). Then Nick couldn’t
ever find that groove to get himself back into the baseball game.”
But Barkholz made it clear the umpiring wasn’t the entire reason for Vespi’s lack of success.
Vespi had first-pitch strikes to 11 of the 24 batters he faced, and of those 11 times he got ahead in the
count, outs were recorded seven times.
“Nick just wasn’t sharp, that’s just the bottom line,” Barkholz said. “Nick needed to overcome, but Nick
is also 15-years-old. Yes, we think, he’s a talented kid, but he just couldn’t get over that hump
today.”
BASEBALL
REGIONAL SEMIFINAL
DIVISION II
oak harbor 6, eastwood 5
Eastwood 000 210 2—5 9 0
Oak Harbor 310 100 1—6 9 0
BATTING LEADERS
HITS — (E) Schmeltz 3, Keyes 2, Mang, Coffield, Hayward, Zellers; (OH) Cecil 2, Bryant 2, Everett 2,
Warnke, J. Mallernee, Scott. 3B — (OH) Cecil. HR — (E) Hayward. RUNS — (E) Beam, Schmeltz, Hayward,
Keyes, Zellers; (OH) Konieczny 2, Cecil, B. Mallernee, Bryant, Bowlick. RBI — (E) Hayward 2, Schmeltz 2,
Coffield; (OH) Cecil 2, Bryant, Everett, Warnke, J. Mallernee. SB — (E) Keyes, Schmeltz; (OH) B.
Mallernee, Konieczny.SAC — (E) Faykosh, Coffield; (OH) Warnke, Konieczny, J. Mallernee. HBP —(OH) Scott
(by Vespi), Everett (by Vespi). LOB — Eastwood 6, Oak Harbor 8.
PITCHING SUMMARY
IP H R ER BB SO
Away
Vespi 3 2-3 5 5 5 6 4
Faykosh (LP) 2 1-3 4 1 1 0 2
Home
B. Mallernee 5 7 3 3 0 6
Konieczny (WP) 2 2 2 2 2 1