Saturday, May 24, 2014
By Greg Gulas
STRUTHERS
Western Reserve pitcher Nick Allison, bothered recently by soreness in his elbow, hadn’t seen the mound in nearly two weeks.
When he got to Bob Cene Park for Friday’s Division IV district final against Mathews, Allison made it a point to tell head coach Ed Anthony that he was ready and wanted the ball.
Allison responded by tossing a three-hitter, striking out four, as the Blue Devils defeated the Mustangs, 5-2 to capture their first district championship since 2011.
They will now advance to regional play May 29 where they will take on Louisville St. Thomas Aquinas at the Lorain Pipe Yard.
The Knights advanced Thursday as well by capturing the Barberton district, defeating Kidron Central Christian, 13-0 in five innings.
“My fastball and splitter were both working tonight and while I was a little nervous at the outset, I was able to settle down and get into the flow of the game,” Allison said. “Our defense played a great game and that was a big help. Our goal was to win district and since we’ve done that, we now want to add a regional title as well.”
The Blue Devils (18-5) staked Allison to the early 2-0 lead when John Clegg’s triple scored Dan Rosati and Jake Clark’s groundout plated Clegg in the first inning.
The Mustangs (18-5) cut the Western Reserve lead in half in the second inning when Mike Kennedy reached on a single and scored on an infield error.
Zach Smith’s run-scoring single increased the Western Reserve lead to 3-1 in the second inning. But Mathews’ Kolan Elser got the run back in their half of the third stanza when an Allison pitch struck him in the back and he eventually scored on another infield error to make it 3-2.
“Nick hit his spots all night and you’d never know that he hasn’t pitched in 12 days. He’s been our go-to pitcher all season long and today was no different,” Smith said. “Timely hitting with men on base was also big for us tonight as well.”
Smith’s suicide squeeze in the fourth inning scored Tristan Bova for a 4-2 Blue Devils advantage. Clark’s sacrifice fly plated Dan Rosati with the game’s final run in the fifth.
“As a sophomore, I’m still trying to prove my worth to the coaching staff so I just go out and do what I need to do in order to get the job done,” Clark said. “I have the same mindset every game, no matter the opponent but we all realized that today’s game was pretty special if we expected our season to continue.”
Anthony, who also served as Allison’s quarterback coach in football, called his pitcher’s performance “gutsy.”
“Nick has always come to the park and delivered on his promise. He has had some elbow soreness, which caused him to miss several turns in the rotation, but he said give me the ball and that look just told me it was going to be his day,” Anthony said. “We felt that in order to win, especially this far along in the tournament, we would have to play situational ball offensively and that really worked to our advantage.”
Mathews coach Jared Terlecky called both Allison’s performance and that of Mustangs pitcher, Jeremy Forsythe tremendous efforts.
“Nick did a fantastic job and his defense played excellent behind him. They made plays, had clutch hits and that is a simple recipe for success,” Terlecky said. “As for Jeremy, we try to give our pitchers five days rest but he was working on just four days and did an excellent job. I was impressed because he was always around the plate and had a low pitch count late in the game. Their timely hits were just too much to overcome.”