Jonathan Alder’s Grant Horn slides headfirst into second with a stolen base against Columbus Bishop Hartley. The Hawks edged the Pioneers, 2-1, during a Division II tournament contest.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
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“Bishop Hartley made one more play than we did.”
That’s how Jonathan Alder head baseball coach Craig Kyle assessed the No. 4-seeded Pioneers’ 2-1 loss to the No. 7 Hawks.
The setback came during a Division II tournament game that was played on Alder’s diamond.
The play Kyle was referring to is a baseball rarity.
“I’ve been coaching high school baseball for 20 years and I’ve never seen a triple play,” he said.
The Hawks pulled off the stunning play during the home half of the sixth inning.
Hartley led 2-1, but the Pioneers had runners on first and second with no outs.
Nick Sowers led off JA’s portion of the inning and drew a walk from Hawk hurler Emmett Gillies.
Grant Horn went in to run for Sowers and Ty Moore was at the plate.
Horn successfully slid headfirst into second with a stolen base.
Moore, like Sowers, worked a full count before earning another free trip to first base.
With runners on first and second, Greg Kennedy strode to the plate.
Gilies got ahead in the count 0-2.
Kyle flashed a sign, the runners were on the move and Kennedy squared around to bunt.
Kennedy made contact with the ball, but couldn’t place it on the ground where he wanted.
Had the ball gone on the infield grass, Kennedy would have sacrificed himself to advance both Horn and Moore into scoring position.
Instead, the ball popped up to Gillies on the mound.
The pitcher caught it for the first out.
Gillies quickly turned and zipped the ball to shortstop Alex Blain, who stepped on second for the force out.
Blain then fired the ball to first baseball Brendan Laret for the force that resulted in the triple play.
That more or less took the air out of the Pioneers, who concluded their season with a 17-8 record.
Despite the outcome of the play, Kyle said he’d do the same thing in the same situation.
“I would have had the runners moving again,” the veteran coach said.
Kyle explained it was getting late in the contest and he was trying to get a couple of runners into scoring position.
Much of the game featured a pitcher’s dual between Gillies and Jonathan Alder starter Jonathan Keith.
Bishop Hartley scored the first run of the game during the visitors’ portion of the initial inning.
Gillies blasted Keith’s first pitch to left field for a double.
Keith fanned the next two batters, but Gillies advanced to third on a wild pitch.
He scored on the first of two Pioneer fielding miscues.
The inning ended when catcher Jackson Bennett threw out Dimitri Boumis on a stolen base attempt.
Jonathan Alder answered in the bottom of the first with what proved to be its only run of the day.
With one down, Andrew Harp and Chase Maynard ripped back-to-back base hits.
Gillies got the second out on a strikeout before Sowers singled in Harp for a 1-1 deadlock.
Hartley’s pitcher got out of further trouble with an inning-ending strikeout.
The second-through-fourth innings flew by without much of an offensive threat from either team.
Both squads left one runner on base during that time.
The Hawks used some small ball to tally the go-ahead run in the top of the fifth.
Donovan Tucker drew a one-out walk from Keith and then stole second.
Tucker went to third on a fielder’s choice out and scored on pinch-hitter Joey Wooten’s base hit.
The Pioneers threatened during their portion of the fifth.
Hank Shoemaker laced a one-out single and Harp legged out an infield hit.
A wild pitch advanced them up a base.
Gillies once again escaped a jam with a popup and strikeout.
Relief pitcher Brennan Nichols went to the mound for the Pioneers in the sixth inning.
He notched a strikeout before walking Peyton Underwood.
A wild pitch put Underwood on second base.
Kyle ordered an intentional free pass to Boumis to set up a force at third base.
Nichols, though, put another K in the book and coaxed a popup to get out of the inning.
The triple play thwarted the Pioneers’ scoring threat in the home half of the sixth.
Nichols then retired the Hawks in order in the top of the seventh.
The Pioneers grabbed the sticks in a last ditch effort to score the tying or winning runs in the bottom of the frame.
Nichols drew a full-count walk to lead off the inning.
He went to second on Ashton Martin’s sacrifice bunt.
Nichols represented the tying run as he was perched on second.
Gillies, however, induced two fly ball outs to end JA’s season.
“The guys laid it on the line the entire game,” said Kyle. “Jonathan Keith gave us a gutsy performance coming back to pitch on just three days rest.”
Keith yielded just three hits, fanned seven and issued one walk.
“When you care so much, it hurts so much to lose a game like this,” Kyle said. “I’m just very proud to be these guys’ coach.”
Hartley 100 010 0-2 3 0
JA 100 000 0-1 6 2
WP: Gillies
LP: Keith