Knowing his team would be facing Shady Spring all-state fireballer Cam Manns Monday night, PikeView head coach Josh Wyatt opted for a different strategy.
Instead of throwing his ace Nathan Rife in game one, Wyatt attempted to baffle the Tigers with off-speed pitching.
While the strategy may have been sound on paper, unfortunately for the upset-minded visitors, the execution did not match the strategy.
Three first-inning walks, two errors and a timely hit from Aiden Calvert amounted to a 5-0 lead and Shady Spring never looked back.
When Brody Seabolt singled home Parker Brown in the bottom of the fifth, the Tigers secured a 10-0 win in Game 1 of the Class AA Region 3 championship series.
Game 2 shifts to Gardner Tuesday night where Shady Spring stands one win away from a return trip to the state baseball tournament.
“We didn’t know if they were going to throw Riffe or not (tonight). When we saw that they didn’t, we (told) Cam he was going to go until we got a lead,” Shady Spring head coach Jordan Meadows said. “In the first inning we luckily got five runs which helped. We stopped (Cam) at 30 (pitches), so he could pitch tomorrow. We (also) saved (Tyler) Reed for 30, so we have everybody back for tomorrow.”
As expected, Manns was on fire to open the game, striking out the side in the first two innings. While Manns was doing his part, the Tigers went to work scoring runs immediately.
A leadoff single from Jake Meadows was followed by three one-out walks to give the home team a 1-0 lead.
Parker Brown added to the lead with a sacrifice fly before Adam Richmond scored an an errant throw trying to nail him heading to third base.
Seabolt then reached on an infield error bringing home the fourth run of the inning prior to Calvert’s single for a 5-0 advantage.
“We are not coming in just throwing the game away, but the thought process was this is a three-game series. We wanted to throw some off-speed at them to get some fly balls and we did that,” Wyatt said. “We are two swings away there in the first inning on those two errors from the fourth or fifth inning being a 2-1 ball game. Then it is a different game and Cam would have had to stay in the game. We just didn’t make the plays for it all to pan out.”
With a solid lead in hand, Meadows turned to his bullpen to keep everyone under the 30-pitch limit to make them available for the next two games.
“Once I saw they weren’t throwing Riffe, I knew we just needed a lead. If it was 1-0, we would have probably left Cam in (the game),” Meadows admitted. “Once we got a few runs, we put Reed in there and we were excited.”
With his coach looking for another efficient postseason outing, Reed was once again Mr. Efficiency.
Coming off a 77-pitch, complete game effort to beat Nicholas County in a do-or-die sectional game, the Shady senior recorded eight outs in just 29 pitches.
“Same thing happened last week in sectionals. The kid throws a lot of strikes. He pitches for contact and he is a player,” Meadows said. “Him and Jake’s pitch counts are similar. We don’t know who will start tomorrow, but either way we will be excited for who is on the mound.”
Freshman Sam Barnett came on to record the final out of the game.
“(Sam) is our future. He throws hard and he competes with the varsity guys,” Meadows said. “To give him some (time) in the regional championship, that is what we want.”
Shady Spring tallied seven hits on the day and had five RBI. Brown, Seabolt and Calvert, hitting 6-7-8 in the line-up, accounted for four hits and four of the runs batted in Monday.
“Jake got a few hits and Brody had two solid hits, but every time we were on the base paths, we made them work. We stole a few bases and did a little bit of delayed steals,” Meadows said. “We chipped away and made them make some mistakes. All in all it was a great team win. The pitchers did a good job, (allowing) only one hit.”
Although the early deficit clearly hurt his team, Wyatt was also disappointed with his team’s performance once Manns left the game.
“When they made the move, we felt like it was an opportunity to get ourselves back into it. However, the energy on our end for a regional game was not acceptable,” Wyatt said. “That starts with the coaching staff. We have to do a better job of making sure that is there. We will refresh, reboot and bring it better tomorrow.”
While he was happy with the win, Meadows expects to see more from his team Tuesday.
“I assume we will see Riffe tomorrow at their home field, but our guys have to hit better. Today we only had a few hits. We have to battle and hopefully we win it tomorrow,” Meadows said. “We had to battle in sectionals and tomorrow we will have to battle. Riffe is a good pitcher, but we are all hungry and hope to make it to the state championship.”
