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| Russia's Hayden Quinter and his senior classmates will be playing for a berth to their fourth consecutive regional tournament (Picture by Luke Gronneberg | Sidney Daily News) |
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| The Division IV Southwest Region courtesy of MaxPreps Ohio |
This game will be broadcast by Fish Report from Miamisburg High School with airtime at 4:50 and first pitch at 5:00. Russia is state-ranked #4 and Felicity-Franklin is unranked. The Raider's tournament trail so far has included two wins in run-rule fashion against teams from the Western Ohio Athletic Conference. Most recent was Monday's victory versus Twin Valley South 13-3 in six innings. Over half of Russia's 10 hits in that semifinal came from batters #2 through #4 in the lineup. Junior Braylon Cordonnier led with three hits and continues to be an opposing pitcher's nightmare. In his first plate appearance, the left-hand swinger sparked the scoring by driving an outside strike down the opposite field line for a RBI double. Senior Hayden Quinter, who earlier this season became Russia's all-time career hits leader, used his first at-bat to single in the Raider's second run of the game. Finally, senior Brayden Monnin extended his hitting streak to 12 games with two more knocks on Monday. One of those knocks was a two-run homer to left field, which was his second dinger of the season. Perhaps the most exciting hits for Raider fans though, are the ones coming from the bottom of the lineup. During the team's current 12-game win streak, Coach Kevin Phlipot has consistently gotten production from the #6 through #9 batters, and on Monday it was senior Ben Rinderle leading the way with two hits.
Felicity-Franklin comes into the district final as an obvious underdog and that's likely fine with head coach Donnie Hall. The Cardinals advanced to this same round last season before bowing out against Southeastern. Their seven wins total might not impress anyone, but their four wins in the month of May should. The most impressive of those wins was Monday in a 13-3 run-rule upset of Fayetteville-Perry. Junior Grady Jowers earned the complete game victory, pitching six innings, allowing three earned runs, just one walk, and striking out nine batters. The Cardinal's team tallied a mammoth 15 hits, as every player in the lineup except one recorded a safety. Cleanup batter and junior Logan Harless led the hit parade with two doubles, a single and three RBI. Jowers statistics at the plate included a double and three RBI. Also, while Jowers is Felicity-Franklin's top pitcher, he won't be available on Wednesday due to OHSAA pitch count rules. We expect Harless or possibly sophomore Lane McElfresh to take the mound for the home team and oppose Russia's ace Braylon Cordonnier.
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| Tucker Miller has done it all for Bradford this season on the mound and at the plate (Picture by Dale Barger | woacsports.com) |
Bradford (18-9) vs Newton (23-6)
A rematch of two Western Ohio Athletic Conference teams takes place at Hardin-Houston Local School on Wednesday at 5:00. Rewind to April 26th when Bradford hosted Newton and the Railroaders won 8-4. At the time it was a big conference game that left both teams with 5-1 records in the WOAC. In the final standings however, Newton finished tied for 2nd-place and Bradford 4th. That's all history now, but it's worth noting Bradford threw senior ace Tucker Miller that day and Newton went with a young combination of starting freshman Cole Alexander and sophomore reliever Austin Tippie. At Monday's district semifinal, Miller threw five innings in a 10-5 win over Cedarville, which expectedly makes him unable to pitch on Wednesday and likely means head coach Derrick Skinner will go with senior Landon Wills. State-ranked #10 Newton topped Tri-County North on Monday 10-4 and started Tippie, while also getting relief work from Alexander and their ace of the staff, senior Ty Schauer. Reportedly, Indians head coach Jordan Kopp kept Schauer under 50 pitches, making him available to go in the finals.
Regardless of pitchers, this game should be a good-ole fashioned showdown between two local rivals. Miller leads Bradford (and maybe Ohio) at the plate with an eye-popping .600 batting average. He's racked up 54 hits in 90 at-bats, including 10 doubles and four homeruns. Senior teammates Garrett Trevino, Wills and Trey Schmelzer are pretty good too, all hovering around the .400 mark. Newton can swing the bats for average too with Alexander and Tippie leading the way at .375 and .338 respectively. The Indians will be the home team in this one and we expect fans from both communities to show up in full force.
Ft. Loramie (21-6) vs Troy Christian (9-15)
State-ranked #8 Ft. Loramie already won two games earlier this year at the site of the district final on Wednesday in Versailles. The Redskins swept Van Wert and hometown Versailles at the Zac Richard Classic back on April 13th. Head coach Jeff Sanders, a MVBCA Co-Coach of the Year, also assembled one of the toughest regular season schedules in the area. That might explain Ft. Loramie's success in postseason, topping Catholic Central 7-1 and Covington 5-1. In the district semifinal game on Monday, All-SCAL honorees Roger Hoying and Will Hoying, made the most of their six plate appearances. Combined, the seniors reached base five times and knocked in three runs. Additionally, it's no surprise leadoff batter Mavrick Grudich led the team with two of Ft. Loramie's seven hits and had his own RBI. Speaking of the senior Grudich, he's the Redskins ace pitcher as well and spent Monday playing shortstop. Junior Gabe Hart took the mound and was brilliant with seven innings pitched, the one run being unearned, five hits, one walk and eight strikeouts. We expect Grudich on the hill to face Troy Christian.
The Eagles had a respectable record of 7-7 at the end of April, but May was absolutely brutal for head coach Tony Ferraro's program. Troy Christian lost their final eight regular season games. All that matters at the present though, is the #11-seed Eagles two tournament wins over #8-seed Lehman 7-6 and #5-seed Southeastern on Monday 4-0. That blanking of Southeastern was especially impressive considering the Trojans were a regional finalist last year. Leading Troy Christian at the plate all season has been cleanup batter Camden Koukol. The senior is the second-best hitter in the entire Three Rivers Conference with a .452 average. Also, keep your eye on junior Judah Simmons with a .352 average. Simmons is the ace of the pitching staff as well, but threw all seven innings on Monday. That means the Eagles will have to decide between seniors Carson Dyer or Andrew Knostman to start.
Happy Wednesday baseball fans.
Two SCAL rivals on another possible collision course?
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