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Nordonia sophomore robs Fitch in clutch
By Joe Scalzo
STRUTHERS
The Austintown Fitch High baseball team got inched out of the district tournament on Monday.
Down 6-4 in the bottom of the seventh, Falcon senior Luke Peterson hit a two-on, two-out opposite field bullet to Nordonia sophomore second baseman Justin Post, who made a diving stop to secure the victory in a Division I district semifinal at Cene Park.
“He [Peterson] hit the ball right on the button,” Fitch coach Wally Ford said. “It’s a game of inches and the kid made a nice play.
“That’s the way it goes.”
The Falcons (15-10) stranded eight runners and batted just 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position. They entered the seventh inning trailing 6-3 and quickly made two flyouts. Then No. 3 hitter Scott Pierce hit his second double of the game, Zack Miller followed with a single to right and Phil Socha hit an RBI double to put runners on second and third.
As Miller jogged into third, he yelled at Peterson, “Luke, what did I tell you?”
That prompted Knights coach Drew Hoisington to visit reliever Nick Armao on the mound. But he never considered making a change, he said.
“We had the right guy on the mound,” he said. “We were going with him all the way. I was just going out there to calm the guys down.
“I told them they had to make a play and if the ball’s on the ground, you’ve got to keep it in [the infield].”
Peterson fell behind 1-2, took a ball, fouled off another pitch, then hit what looked like the game-tying liner.
“That’s a sophomore [Post] making probably one of the biggest plays I’ve ever seen a sophomore make,” said Hoisington, whose team will play Aurora in today’s district final. “And it happened in a big game.
“I scheduled very tough this year and we’re prepared. We played good team after good team, seeing good game after good game, and when you’re in those tight games, you don’t panic. He made a play because he’s been in that situation before in a big game.”
Miller finished 3 for 4 with a run and a RBI for Fitch, which won the All-American Conference Red Division.
Junior Brandon Talion (3-1) pitched five innings to get the win — “He battled his butt off,” Hoisington said — and senior Nick Nolan had the game’s biggest hit, a bases-loaded triple in the third that gave the Knights a 4-1 lead. All three runs were unearned, with Pierce mishandling a grounder at short with two outs and nobody on.
“We made the error and they capitalized,” Ford said. “It [the loss] wasn’t a lack of effort or anything like that. We hung right in there to the end. They [the Knights] just made one play.”
Fitch loses six senior starters — and nine seniors overall — and Ford got a little choked up as he talked to the Falcons afterward
“It’s always tough [to say goodbye],” he said. “I always go into a little period of depression after the season.”
He laughed.
“That’s just the nature of it,” he said. “You work with guys all that time and the moment’s just over.
“It was a good season. We won a league title. We had a lot of guys that played a lot of ball for us. It just hurts right now, but we’ll get over that. I’m sure there’ll be more good memories than bad ones.”