MARCUS — Tied 3-3 after five innings, the Class 1A No. 3 ranked Akron-Westfield baseball team exploded for 11 runs in the top of the sixth to pull away for a 14-4 win in six innings over MMCRU on Wednesday in War Eagle Conference action.
“We had chances earlier in the game where we could have blown it open and just didn’t get it done,” A-W head coach Gordy Johnson said. “The kids got a little tight and we just talked about relax, just keep battling all the way through and finally we exploded and started roping the ball. We just hung around and finally got an opportunity to blow it open and got it done.”
The bottom of the order got the rally started for the Westerners. No. 8 batter Laytin Koch reached on a single while No. 9 hitter Ashton McCully beat out an infield single. Moving back to the top of the order, Carter Wilken dropped down a bunt which rolled past pitcher Mitchell Schnepf charging off the mound. That loaded the bases and led to the Royals switching pitchers.
“He held us to a tie ball game through five. Ultimately it was his runs that came across in the sixth to start that, but he did a great job,” MMCRU head coach Cam Kuchel said of Schnepf, who ended up going five complete innings and giving up six runs. “He didn’t have his bender tonight as well. I don’t know if the wind had some effect on that, obviously good hitting affects some of that too. If he could have plated his bender a little better I think we would have fared a little better.”
Michael Peterson came on in relief and ended up getting a couple outs, but also had three runs charged to him. Conner Wendel drove in two runs with a double and Jack Terpstra followed with an RBI triple. William Hartman added an RBI with a base hit. A couple of walks and a wild pitch allowed another run to score, leading to another pitching change by the Royals with the score at 9-3.
Lucas Braun hit the first batter he faced and the inning continued with an error, walk and two-run single from Terpstra, who ended with a team-leading three runs batted in for the win.
“They just hit the ball, that’s ultimately what it came down to. I don’t know how many hits they had in that inning specifically, but it was a lot. Plated 11 runs,” Kuchel said. “It’s just an unbelievable unit one through nine and there’s not an easy out in that lineup. You have to come with your best stuff the whole time against them.”
MMCRU got three hits and a base-loaded walk against relief pitcher Jackson Neubrand in the bottom of the sixth inning as they looked to get one more run across to avoid the run-rule loss in six innings, but the junior pitcher got a strikeout to finish the game in the sixth. Both outs Neubrand recorded came via strikeout as the three A-W pitchers combined for nine strikeouts in the game. McCully struck out one in three innings while Nathan Gaswint finished with six strikeouts in 2 1/3 innings.
Johnson kept McCully and Gaswint under 40 pitchers so they would be available to pitch on Friday.
“Nathan came in and pitched really well and Neubrand, we were up by a ways and he came in and threw strikes,” Johnson said. “It’s a good team pitching staff. We’re going to pick each other up and going to battle every night.”
MMCRU scored their first three runs against McCully, taking a 1-0 lead in the opening inning on an RBI single from Schnepf.
The Westerners tied the game in the second with an RBI single from McCully. The visitors took a 3-1 lead with two runs the following frame as Kasey Nielsen drove in two runs with a base hit.
The Royals answered in the bottom of the third as No. 9 hitter Xander Tentinger doubled to the left field fence. Gage Johnson followed with an RBI single and the Royals tied the score with an RBI base hit from Schnepf.
Johnson said the final score doesn’t indicate how close the game really was for most of the evening.
“Marcus is a good team. They hit the ball. Their No. 9 guy almost put one out. That’s a good club. They’re going to make some noise here in the tournament. It’s a good win for us, a really good win for us,” Johnson said.
The Westerners improved to 14-1 overall and 5-0 in the conference standings. MMCRU fell to 8-5 overall and 3-2 in conference games.
