MILLBURY — Perrysburg loaded the bases to open the third inning of a scoreless game on Wednesday.
Lake coach Greg Wilker strolled toward Jacob Boelkens on the mound and said, “they’re definitely going to
squeeze at some point.
“I’ve coached against coach Hall for a lot of years and we both believe in the short game.”
Boelkens gathered himself and struck out the three-hole hitter, got a second out on a failed squeeze-bunt
attempt, and punched out the four-hole hitter to keep the game tied before scoring a pair runs in the
bottom of the frame en route to a 3-0 nonleague win.
“We were lucky that they didn’t execute there,” Wilker added.
Lake, which has only allowed two runs through five games, notched its third shutout and improved to 5-0.
Perrysburg fell to 5-2.
The Yellow Jackets’ Nate Ball, who had Perrysburg’s only hit up to that point, was the first out of the
third inning. Bryan Mitchell was caught between third and home after Aidan Pratt’s missed bunt attempt
before Pratt struck out swinging.
“We had one of our best hitters up, he struck out. He had the one hit we had, and he’s been hitting the
ball. The kid made a good pitch,” Perrysburg coach Dave Hall said. “And the squeeze was the key. Instead
of just catching the ball we tried to punch through it.
“We never put the ball in play after we got the bases loaded with no outs.”
Lake answered by putting Perrysburg in a dangerous situation of its own.
Tyler Saffran, out of the nine-hole, led off the inning with a walk. Then Harry Jackson, who later
doubled, hustled down the line and forced an errant throw from the third baseman to put runners on the
corners.
Bronson Medley, who already had Lake’s only hit of the game to that point, ripped an RBI single through
the second-base gap for a 1-0 lead. Jackson doubled the score when he scored on a wild throw down to
second on Medley’s steal of second base.
“They hit more groundballs than us, and with the weather like today, you gotta adjust and we didn’t do
it,” Hall said. “We had too many popups and in this weather you can catch ‘em.”
Mitchell struck out the next two batters and got Luke Walsh — who later hit an RBI single to left field
to add an insurance run in the fifth — to ground out to third to end the inning, but the damage was done
in a low-scoring pitchers’ duel with the wind swirling in the open field.
Medley singled twice for Lake’s only multi-hit player. Jackson and Dawson Delventhal both doubled.
Boelkens struck out five to earn the shutout win.
“The reason we want to play them and they want to play us every year, early, is we get to see their best
pitching,” Hall said.
Mitchell, who took the loss through four innings, belted a single into left field to lead off the third
inning and later beat out a groundball to shortstop to lead Perrysburg with a pair of hits. Ball, Luke
Borer and Andrew Volschow each singled.
Perrysburg 000~000~0~0~4~2
Lake 002~010~x~3~5~3