Poland pulls away from Springfield

Klase pitches well

in Poland victory

By DAN HINER

sports@vindy.com

POLAND

It seemed like a pitchers’ duel early, but the baseball game between Poland and Springfield slowly became one-sided Saturday.

The Poland offense started slow, but the Bulldogs put together nine runs between the third and fifth innings to defeat the Tigers, 11-1, in five innings.

The Tigers (17-8) were down 2-0 heading into the top of the third, but after a two-out single by Dalton Donachie, the Tigers cut the Bulldog lead to 2-1.

Poland’s Marty Malenic walked to start the bottom of the third inning. Malenic eventually scored after Jared Burkert hit a fielder’s choice that resulted in the second out of the inning. Burkert stole second base, and was driven in after a two-out hit by Jake Hawkins for a 4-1 lead.

Poland scored six runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to extend its lead to 10-1. The Bulldogs batted around, sending 11 batters to the plate. Poland had seven hits and two walks during the inning.

The Bulldogs scored the final run of the game after Burkert drove in Anthony Calcagni with runners on first and second, and nobody out in the bottom of the fifth.

Poland head coach Rich Murray said the team could use a win against Springfield to help themselves heading into the tournament. Murray said it was a good lesson for his team to get quality at-bats against a pitcher like Donachie.

“I thought Dan Klase pitched pretty well for us,” Murray said. “Only gave up two hits, walked a few too many, but other than that he pitched well. He battled out of a lot of jams. They’re a good team. We hit their good kid today.”

Murray said the Bulldogs’ offense has been playing well all year. He didn’t have much to say about his team’s performance against the Tigers, but he was able to sum it up in a couple sentences.

“A few errors, a few walks and we’ve been getting timely hitting all year. So our bats are pretty good,” Murray said.

Springfield head coach Matt Weymer said the Tigers didn’t play well, and the team’s fundamental mistakes allowed the Poland bats to heat up in the third inning.

“We made to many mistakes,” Weymer said. “We spend so much time talking about the things we need to do to be successful, and obviously when you play a team like Poland, the margin for error is very small. We didn’t execute cut-[off] plays — there was a bunch of stuff that went wrong today.

“I think the biggest thing is Poland is a really talented team and when you screw up, you’re gonna be in a lot of trouble. We don’t get mercied a lot, but when you play like that, you’re going to.”