Logan head coach Kevin Gertz is getting married on July 3.
It’ll be the second ring he’s earned in the span of a week.
Logan started fast, scoring four runs each in the first three innings and capturing the seventh championship in program history with a 13-0 win over North Marion in the Class AA championship game Saturday at Power Park in Charleston.
The Wildcats were dominant in every aspect of the game. They piled up 11 hits at the plate and faced just one batter above the minimum on the mound in a game they won in five innings after inducing the mercy rule.
“I told them I’m getting married a week from today, on our baseball field,” Gertz said. “When I asked her she said ‘When do you want to get married?’ And she gave me three dates. She said ‘you pick.’ This is going to sound cocky, but I believed in this – we’ll get married on Saturday, July 3, one week after we win a state championship and that was six months ago and I believed this was going to happen. We’re very, very young, but I know how good our kids are.”
In his final game as a Wildcat senior southpaw Tyler Fenwick delivered, pitching five innings and allowing just two hits.
Despite an early hiccup, by his standards, he rebounded.
After yielding a leadoff single to Dylan Renner, Cole Malnick reached on a fielder’s choice after Renner was cut down at second. A 6-3 double play got the Wildcats out of the inning unscathed, allowing the offense to go to work.
It never clocked out.
Four runs in each of the first three innings staked the Wildcats to a 12-0 lead as the team sent 26 batters to the plate over that span.
Korbin Bostic got things in the first rolling with a leadoff single. Dawson Maynard reached behind him on an error but the Huskies found some relief when they retired No. 3 hitter Jake Ramey. It was short-lived as they added to their plate when starter Malnick hit Garrett Williamson to load the bases.
Fenwick helped his own cause with an RBI single that scored Bostic but Maynard, hot on his heels, was tagged out at the plate. It didn’t matter much as a successful double steal of second and home made it a 2-0 game and RBIs from Aiden Slack and Konner Lowe made it 4-0.
They kept the momentum rolling in the second with Maynard, Fenwick and Lowe driving in three of the four runs with another steal of home accounting for the fourth.
North Marion made a pitching change after the fifth run scored, but it proved futile.
“Once they got the runs on us they just started gambling,” North Marion head coach Vic Seccuro said. “Playing the odds and it worked out for them and that’s all there is to it. They just dominated us right there.”
After the Wildcats scored their first run in the third Gertz started pinch-hitting for his starters. There was little drop off. Joey Canterbury, hitting for Slack in the third, smacked a double down the line that cleared the bases, making it 12-0.
Meanwhile Fenwick kept rolling on the bump.
He allowed base runners in the third and fourth innings, but picked both off.
“Towards the end of the game my curveball was on and they weren’t touching it,” Fenwick said. “So I was just commanding the curveball all game. And it worked out.”
Emptying their bench, the Wildcats tacked on one more run in the bottom of the fourth for good measure. In the top of the fifth Fenwick closed the deal, striking out the side.
“Great game,” Gertz said, “Tyler was dominant like I knew he would be. I didn’t know he’d be quite this good. I told him ‘There’s no way you’re throwing a complete game. You give me what you got.’ He threw yesterday. He only threw 15 pitches yesterday but he warmed up three times. And I was scared to death but I said you’re our senior. We tend to give our championship games to seniors and I said ‘give me what you got. If it’s an inning, it’s an inning. If it’s four it’s four’ and he went out for five great innings.”
Gertz, who has contemplated retirement after this season says he’ll take some more time to think it over before announcing a decision.
“It’ll be a couple of months,” Gertz said. “I’m gonna take some time. I don’t want to make any quick judgements.”
Logan finishes the season at 27-6 while North Marion concludes the most successful season in program history at 20-9.
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Logan beats North Marion 13-0.
The Wildcats are Class AA champs#wvprepbase pic.twitter.com/7yp0nTwBu4— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) June 26, 2021