Matt Belt of Marysville watches his base hit against Westland. The Monarchs will travel to Gahanna-Lincoln this afternoon to play Lancaster in the Division I district semifinals.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
––––
The Union County area’s final high school baseball tournament hopes for the 2019 campaign rest with the Marysville Monarchs.
MHS will take a 15-12 record into today’s Division I district semifinal contest against Lancaster.
The Golden Gales sport a 24-3 record and are the No. 2-seeded squad in the district.
The Monarchs are seeded No. 14.
The game will be played at Blacklick Elementary School in Gahanna as a neutral site.
The school is where Gahanna-Lincoln High School plays its varsity contests.
Marysville will encounter a veteran Lancaster squad that has a history of recent post-season success.
“They made a deep run to the regional semifinals last year,” said MHS head coach Nick Blake. “They’ve got five starters back from that team.”
The Golden Gales will take a substantial offensive lineup into the game against Monarch starting pitcher Trey Storr.
“They’ve got a handful of guys hitting in the .450 range and some others who are at .350,” said the MHS coach. “They are very aggressive on offense.”
The Monarchs are batting .272 as a team, led by Gabe Schaeffer (.365), Blake Storr (.333), Jack Christian (.312), Matt Belt (.306) and Connor Parks (.303).
Lancaster will, however, be going up against a solid pitcher in Storr.
He will take a 3-2 record into the contest with an earned run average of 0.80.
“Both of Trey’s losses were 1-0 games against Upper Arlington and Dublin Coffman,” said Blake. “He throws strikes and gets ahead of batters.
“That’s what we’re going to need against Lancaster.”
The Monarchs will likely encounter Golden Gale junior Casey Finck on the pitching mound.
He’s been the Ohio Capital Conference Ohio Division player of the year the past two seasons.
“We’re going to be in the same situation that Big Walnut was in last week when they played us in the tournament,” said Blake. “We were expected to win that game and Lancaster is expected to win this one.”
Blake said Lancaster is a solid team all-around and there are no real areas he sees that the Monarchs can especially exploit.
“They are very good at playing situational baseball,” he said. “They execute well in all facets of the game.
“They field and hit the ball well and their pitchers throw strikes,” said Blake. “They don’t have an area in which we can particularly attack.”
The Monarch coach does know, however, what his squad will need to do in order to advance in the post-season.
“We are going to need to either get out to an early lead or keep it close for much of the game,” he said.
“We also need some timely hits,” the coach added. “That’s what it’s all about at tournament time.”