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- Val T.
- 17 minutes ago
- 5 min read
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
The Caston baseball team celebrates with the sectional trophy following a 6-5 win over West Central in the Class 1A, Sectional 50 final at Tri-County’s Remington Community Park Monday. Ranked No. 5, the Comets will play Fort Wayne Blackhawk in a regional Saturday. Site and game time are to be determined.
REMINGTON — For the love of all that is holy – or should we say for all that is Holle – it was time for the Caston baseball team to come up clutch in the bottom of the seventh inning of Monday’s Class 1A, Sectional 50 final after a stunning homer by a West Central star.
They did, and it led to the third sectional title in school history.
London Herd drove in two runs, the second of which came on a walk-off sacrifice fly, and Brodie Howard drove in a run at the plate and got the win on the mound as the Comets beat the Trojans 6-5 at Remington Community Park.
Gavin Mollenkopf added a hit, a crucial walk and an RBI, and Eli Holloway also had a hit.
Ranked No. 5, Caston improved to 21-5 and earned a matchup with Fort Wayne Blackhawk in a regional Saturday. The IHSAA will determine the site and game time by Wednesday.
Fort Wayne Blackhawk won the Sectional 52 title with a 14-4 win over Fort Wayne Canterbury.
West Central finished 16-6.
Sophomore southpaw Teagen Holle took the loss, but he would not have had the chance to pitch in the bottom of the seventh without his hitting heroics in the top half. With runners on second and third and two out, Holle lined a Howard pitch to deep right-center.
It rolled and rolled and rolled some more to the right-center field gap.
Maddox Gutwein scored. Braylon Gutwein scored.
Holle got to third and got the wave from coach David Allen.
The cutoff throw from second baseman Carson Harness was off to the first baseline. Mollenkopf handled the throw and dove back to the plate. Holle slid headfirst.
The world stared at home plate umpire David Kinder for an instant. He spread his hands wide. Safe.
Holle had hit a game-tying, inside-the-park three-run homer.
Howard allowed an infield single to Tate Leman but got Zane Wall on a comebacker to retire the side.
Holle had retired 11 of the last 12 batters he faced when he went back to the mound.
He got ahead of Logan Mollenkopf 0-2, but Logan Mollenkopf worked the count full before Holle hit him.
Eli Holloway fell behind 1-2 in the count and hit a foul pop about three feet behind first base. The first baseman missed it for an error.
Holloway’s at-bat continued, and he hit a sharp grounder up the middle. Perhaps thinking that his best chance for getting an out was quickly fielding it and trying to step on second in one motion, shortstop Connor Huber ranked far to his left, but he did not get pick it cleanly, and it went for an infield single.
Gavin Mollenkopf fouled off the first pitch and appeared to disagree with a called strike two. But down 0-2, he came back to work a walk, pumping up the first base dugout as he levitated over to first base.
With the bases loaded and nobody out, Allen replaced Holle on the mound with Leman. Holle moved out to center field, Isaac Warner moved from center field to shortstop, Huber moved from shortstop to third base, and the burly Wall took over behind the plate for Leman.
Leman wound up throwing two pitches. Herd hit the second pitch to shallow center. Coach Blake Mollenkopf told Logan Mollenkopf to go.
Again there was a headfirst slide. Again there was a tag. Again the world looked at Kinder for his call.
Safe. Logan Mollenkopf flung his helmet to the sky while the Comets poured out of the dugout and mobbed each other.
West Central appealed whether Logan Mollenkopf left early, but the appeal was denied.
Harness, who pitched three hitless innings in relief against South Newton in a 6-1 win in the quarterfinals Thursday and 4 ⅔ scoreless innings against Tri-County in a 6-0 win in the semifinals Saturday, was back on the mound again.
He struck out Huber to start the game, but Huber reached on a wild pitch. Teagan Holle flew out to left with Tucker Woolever making a running grab. Harness walked Leman, and a wild pitch moved runners to second and third.
Wall struck out, but Hayden Johns blooped a two-run single just in front of Elijah Zabel in right to give West Central a 2-0 lead.
Holle retired six of the first seven batters he faced. In the third, Caston got to him for five runs, exploiting flaws in his defense.
Woolever started with a single and went to second on Lucius Edson’s sacrifice bunt. Logan Mollenkopf hit a grounder to third, but he reached on a wild throw over the first baseman’s head, scoring Woolever from second.
Eli Holloway walked, pushing Logan Mollenkopf to second.
Gavin Mollenkopf singled to right-center to score Logan Mollenkopf. Holloway tried to go from first to third. The throw appeared to beat him, but he inadvertently kicked the ball out of Wall’s glove and was safe.
With Herd batting, Holle appeared to have Gavin Mollenkopf picked off, but the first baseman elected to hold onto the ball and let Gavin Mollenkopf steal second rather than get him in a pickle and risk Holloway stealing home.
The weirdness continued. Herd hit a grounder on the right side. The first baseman moved to his right and could not reach it. Second baseman Maddox Gutwein did reach it, but Holle was late to cover first base.
Herd had an RBI infield single, Logan Mollenkopf was now at third, and Caston had their first lead at 3-2.
Holle then hit Parker Zimpleman with a pitch.
Then Howard hit a ground ball to second base. The second baseman fielded the ball in the baseline and tried to tag Zimpleman, but the ball was dislodged and flew out of his glove for an error. Gavin Mollenkopf and Herd scored to make it 5-2.
Harness allowed Isaac Warner’s leadoff single in the fourth but retired the next three batters. Logan Mollenkopf relieved and retired the first six batters he faced on five groundouts and first baseman Herd’s nifty running catch of a foul pop – a benefit of Remington Park’s ample foul territory – to retire Wall.
Mollenkopf came out to start the seventh but walked Maddox Gutwein. He struck out Bryce Robbins looking but fell behind 3-0 to Braylon Gutwein.
Coach Mollenkopf made the switch to Howard in the middle of the at-bat. He completed the walk to Braylon Gutwein but struck out Huber swinging.
Up came Holle. Caston was one out away.
Caston 6, West Central 5
West Central 200 000 3 – 5 6 3
Caston 005 000 1 – 6 3 0
WP – Brodie Howard (⅔ IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K)
LP – Teagen Holle (6 IP, 3 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 10 K)
HR – Teagen Holle (WC)
