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Howland baseball wins on a walk-off — literally
HOWLAND
Kent Roosevelt had one of its two aces on the mound.
Howland had the bottom of the order due up.
With the score tied 10-10 in the bottom half of the seventh inning, the Tigers had already rallied from a five-run deficit. Their challenge now was to complete the comeback and advance to the Division I district baseball semifinal.
Matt Doan drew a leadoff walk from Kent junior pitcher Joe Watts. After a failed bunt attempt, Howland coach Sean Price decided to gamble.
“I took a risk at running Doan, but I had to get him to second,” Price said. “I probably — I had to get him to second, because it’s a lot easier to score from there than it is from first.
“He got a bad jump, but it worked out.”
Watts also began to lose his command. He struck out the next batter, but hit the Tigers’ ninth hitter, Ryan Debiec.
Watts then walked Kyle Watson in a nine-pitch at-bat to load the bases. Vinnie Ruberto came up with one thought in mind: stay patient.
He did just that and drew the third walk of the inning — also his third of the game — to bring home the winning run.
“Bases loaded, you don’t really want to press too hard,” Ruberto said. “You want to see a lot of pitches, work the count, not jump anything, so I think waiting, staying patient with it was key in terms of getting that next run across the plate.”
Watts slammed his glove to the dirt in frustration as the winning run crossed the plate. His final line was 21/3 innings, four hits, four runs, five walks, a hit batter and a wild pitch.
“To be quite honest with you, he throws a lot of pitches and we walk guys, but I think the strike zone was deplorable tonight,” Kent coach Mike Haney Jr. said.
His starter, Aaron Pinsoneault, struggled finding the strike zone at times, too. He allowed seven runs on seven hits and walked three.
“[Pinsoneault] might be the best strike-thrower I’ve ever had and tonight we can’t get a pitch on the inner half,” Haney said. “[Howland] is the best hitting team I’ve seen all year.
“From one through nine, Howland hits it as well as anyone I’ve seen and for us to come down here and get one half of the plate just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The Rough Riders (14-9) roughed up Howland starter Kurt Kuszmaul early. Their three and four hitters, Jesse Rogers and Watts, went 4-for-7 with four runs scored and four RBIs. A four-run fifth inning, sparked by a shot off the center field wall by Watts, gave Kent a 9-4 lead.
However the Tigers (15-8) bats answered, as cleanup hitter Tyler Spain picked a timely at-bat to hit his first home run of the season — a line drive over the right field fence that scored three runs.
“I had a few close ones all year, but that was a good time to get it now,” Spain said. “I was just sitting dead red fastball and got a pitch I liked and put a good swing on it.”
That cut the deficit to 9-7. Kent added another run in the top of the sixth, but the Tigers answered again with three more runs in the bottom half of the inning.
In a wild sequence of events, started by two free passes from Watts, Ruberto hit a ground ball to the shortstop who threw to second for the forceout. In trying to turn the double play, second baseman Mark Lloyd threw the ball over the head of his first baseman, Riley Larkin.
Larkin then gunned the ball to home to try and throw Debiec out. The throw was off the mark. Ruberto scored two batters later to tie the game and set up the dramatic walk-off ninth inning walk.
“They think, as long as we get that last at-bat, we’ll be good,” Price said of his team’s mindset. “That’s the way we’ve been all year.
“Very composed.”
Howland plays the winner of Aurora and Twinsburg at 4 p.m on Monday at Cene Park.