Holland’s homer lifts Canfield to LL title

July 17, 2011 at 12:07a.m.

BOARDMAN

After hitting the ball sharply but unable to advance a teammate at third base in his previous at-bat, Canfield’s Cody Holland stepped into the batter’s box with redemption on his mind.

Holland’s team trailed Poland 4-3 in the fifth inning of Saturday’s Little League 11-12 District championship game and once again Jake Kuchmaner stood on third base.

This time, Holland delivered, cracking a two-run homer over the left-field fence at the Fields of Dreams to give Canfield a 5-4 victory and a trip to the state tournament in Englewood (a suburb of Dayton).

“I didn’t know,” said Holland of whether he had nailed a homer when he left the batter’s box. “I was going to start running as hard as I could and it looked like it just went over the left-field fence.

“It felt solid but I didn’t know how far it went.”

It went far enough to earn Canfield the opportunity to play the best teams in the state.

Anthony Joseph relieved starter Mark Wittman in the sixth inning, retiring the final three Poland batters. Wittman had moved to shortstop and fielded Vincent Gurayua’s grounder to end the game.

“That felt very good,” said Joseph of Wittman’s throw that preserved the one-run lead. “With only one run, that’s very hard for me to because I get very nervous.”

Canfield went 4-1 in the district tournament, playing Poland (7-2) three times including Friday’s 14-2 loss.

“We had confidence in our pitching and hitting,” Canfield manager Scott West said. “Things hadn’t been falling our way — we had a couple of good hits go right to some fielders.

“But we knew if we kept plugging away, some of them were going to drop,” West said.

Poland starter Padraig O’Shaughnessy limited Canfield to two hits and two runs in three innings.

With the help of four Canfield errors, Poland took 4-2 lead into the bottom of the fourth inning.

Michael Maillis’ lead-off double in the second inning led to two Poland runs after hits by Tory Chiaro and Konnor Morse.

Guarayua scored an unearned run in the third inning for a 3-1 lead. Canfield got that run back in their next at-bat when Jacob Cummings doubled off the right-field fence to score Wittman and send Kuchmaner to third.

With one out, Holland made solid contact but third baseman Guaraya fielded the ball cleanly, looked Kuchmaner back to the base then retired Holland. A groundout ended the inning.

“It did frustrate me, but I knew I could come back and try to keep my head on the ball and try to hit it as hard as I could,” Holland said.

Morse tripled and scored Poland’s fourth run on Alex Wollet’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning.

Wittman, who scattered 10 hits over his five innings on the mound, said it was not easy to forget about how well Poland played the night before.

“It was hard because it was in [my] mind all night knowing that they might be even tougher,” said Wittman who scored two runs and reached base three times.

Wittman admitted his team was a little frustrated when they trailed.

“But as the game went on, our defense got even better and it just gave me more confidence,” Wittman said.

After losing to Canfield 2-1 in the second tournament game, Poland won its next six games to earn a berth in the finale.

“They never quit, not a one of them,” Poland manager Dan Klase said. “The more we played, the better they got. Today, [Canfield’s] bats were on and ours weren’t.

“They are a great group of guys,” said Klase of Canfield. “I’m glad it was the two of us.”