Knight, Poland cruise past Canfield for title

May 22, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

STRUTHERS

The Poland High boys baseball team has made six regional tournament appearances under Rich Murray but the Bulldogs haven’t been able to snap a state tournament drought that dates back to 1983.

“We haven’t figured it out yet,” Murray said.

That’s not a problem at the district level.

The Bulldogs benefited from Adam Knight’s tough pitching and Canfield’s sloppy defense to roll to their sixth district title since 2003, beating the Cardinals 12-2 in five innings in Thursday’s Division II district championship at Cene Park.

“We just came out and hit the ball well today and Knight pitched a great game as usual,” Murray said. “All year he’s pitched great. We’re happy to get the ‘W’ and move on.”

Poland rolled up a 10-0 lead after three innings, then put the game away with two outs in the bottom of the fifth when pinch-hitter Matt Baker hit a flare over second base to score Dom Lipari from third.

Eric White, Poland’s No. 9 hitter, went 3-for-3 with a double. He also scored twice and drove in a run for the Bulldogs (25-2), who will meet Tallmadge in the regional final at 5 p.m. Thursday at The Ball Park at Hudson.

“Hopefully we just go up there and hit the ball and pitch well,” Murray said of the regional. “We’ve got a great pitching staff, better than I’ve probably ever had. We’ve got seven guys who can pitch and we have a good defense behind them. We’ve been on a roll all year.

“If we can do all facets of the game, we should do well.”

Knight pitched a three-hitter with three strikeouts and one walk. The Bulldogs’ defense wasn’t quite as solid as usual — they had three errors — but they were better than Canfield, which committed seven errors and gave up 13 hits.

“Canfield always puts up a good game and coming in here, we didn’t underestimate them at all,” said Knight, whose team beat Canfield 7-3 in the teams’ only other meeting, on April 24. “We just came in here heads high, ready to go out and play our best against them.”

Leadoff hitter Anthony Calcagni went 3-for-4 with a double, two runs and three RBIs, while Lipari had two hits, a run and a RBI and Ricky Svetlak had two hits, a run and two RBIs.

Mike Sebes had an RBI double to score Pete Hernandez in the fourth inning and Ryan Cheslik added an RBI single to score Luke Kelty in the fifth for Canfield (15-14), which had just four seniors, including two in Thursday’s lineup.

“Some days the limelight gets to you a little bit and sometimes you don’t have it,” Canfield coach Matt Koenig said. “When you face a really good team, they can pound it and lay it on you and that’s what happened today. Hopefully the guys can learn from it.

“Our future looks pretty solid. I told the boys I want to be in the same situation next year and hopefully we can meet Poland again and give it another shot.”