Hostetler strong in relief, adds RBI triple, but NM falls to Fort Wayne Blackhawk at semistate

Val T.
Jun 15
7 min read

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

LAFAYETTE — North Miami baseball coach Shannon Floor believes in senior Braylon McIntire.

He beat Caston, a top five team in Class 1A, on their field two straight years. He pitched a five-hitter to beat Daleville in the sectional final. He pitched a four-hitter to beat Monroe Central and give the Warriors their first regional title.

So he was going to give him a chance to work out of trouble against Fort Wayne Blackhawk in a Class 1A semistate semifinal at Loeb Stadium Saturday.

The trouble just got to be too much.

The Braves knocked out McIntire after just 1 ⅓ innings in building a 7-1 lead, and they went on to win 9-5.

Fort Wayne Blackhawk improved to 10-14. North Miami finished their historic season 19-13.

Junior Quinn Hostetler relieved McIntire, and he allowed just two runs over the final 5 ⅔ innings. Hostetler held down the Fort Wayne Blackhawk offense for long enough that they got within 7-5 in the fourth on Hostetler’s RBI triple and Colin Floyd’s RBI groundout to second.

But North Miami had only two baserunners over the final three innings against Fort Wayne Blackhawk senior hurler Brady Ellington.

Ellington pitched a five-hitter with seven strikeouts. After Fort Wayne Blackhawk extended the lead to 9-5 on back-to-back RBI singles from Grant Knudson and Isaac Stayton in the top of the sixth, he allowed a single to Lake Musall to lead off the bottom half. Musall then advanced all the way to third on a wild pickoff throw with one out, but Ellington recovered to fan Logan Smith and Hostetler to escape the jam.

Ellington then slipped a called third strike past Floyd and got Evan Chumbley on a fly to left to start the seventh. Keaton Floor walked to keep the game going, but Maxwell Warner made a highlight film, sliding a catch in right field on the turf on Ryan Meredith’s sinking fly ball to end it.

North Miami fans gave their team a standing ovation as they walked off the field after the postgame handshake.

“I tell you, we have some of the best fans,” coach Floor said. “They’ve been with us all season and especially at the end of May into the playoffs. It seems like we’ve outnumbered opponents’ fans. They’re great. I can’t thank them enough. They’ve done a lot of stuff for us this week, cheering us on. It felt good how our fans treated us. It does feel really good.”

Fort Wayne Blackhawk came out aggressive. Freshman leadoff hitter Hudson Amstutz lined the first pitch of the game just over Hostetler’s head – Hostetler started the game at shortstop – for a single.

Ellington swung at the second pitch and lined out to Meredith in center. Warner swung at the first pitch and lined a single to left. A wild pitch moved runners to second and third.

Wood worked a six-pitch at-bat against McIntire and drove in a run with an RBI grounder to Evan Chumbley at second.

Fort Wayne Blackhawk got aggressive again. On the second pitch of his at-bat, Knudson ripped a triple into the left-center field gap that rolled for a while on the turf. Stayton then lined a single on the first pitch that landed on one hop just in front of Meredith.

Fort Wayne Blackhawk had a 3-0 lead within McIntire’s first 13 pitches.

“We had looked at their pitchers, and it looked like they threw a lot of strikes,” Fort Wayne Blackhawk coach Kevin Kinnison said. “So usually when that’s the case, they’re wanting to get ahead. So we wanted to seek out some fastballs for strikes and put a barrel on it. You can play 50 games, and that happens one game where they’re all hits. Or they all go right at people.”

Meredith played a leading role in manufacturing a run off Ellington in the bottom half. He led off with a walk, stole second and third and scored on a passed ball.

Though their at-bats became longer, Fort Wayne Blackhawk continued to attack in the second. Chip Bennett fell behind 0-2 in the count but ripped a fly to deep right over Keaton Floor’s head in right field. Bennett raced to third and beat Chumbley’s relay throw by an eyelash for a leadoff triple. Carson Joseph then reached on an error, scoring Bennett.

Amstutz’s sacrifice bunt moved Joseph to second. Ellington then fell behind 0-2 but finally won a battle against McIntire, lining a single to right on the 10th pitch of the at-bat and moving Joseph to third.

Max Akers entered as a courtesy runner for Ellington and stole second.

Warner then pulled a low liner to left. Musall made a lunging effort but could only trap it, and Warner raced to second with an RBI double as the ball rolled a short distance from the sprawled-out Musall. Akers, who did not advance until he was sure the ball hit the ground, moved from second to third.

Coach Floor replaced McIntire with Hostetler.

“He just didn't have his stuff,” coach Floor said. “They were jumping on him right from the first pitch. Maybe I should have pulled him out a little sooner, but he’s one of our bulldogs. You got to give him a chance. But he just didn’t have it. Just the way it was today for him. I hate it for him, but it is what it is.”

Two pitches into Kyler Wood’s at-bat, Hostetler threw a wild pitch. Akers came racing to the plate. Hostetler raced from the mound to cover, but the throw was behind him for an error. Akers was safe, and with the ball in no man’s land in the middle of the infield, Warner came racing in from second.

In one wild pitch, the score had gone from 5-1 to 7-1.

From there, Hostetler found his footing. He got out of the second without further trouble. He retired the leadoff batter in each of the next five innings.

In the third, Ellington singled to shallow left with two on and two out, but Musall charged the hit and gunned down courtesy runner Wyatt Knudson trying to score from second with Jension Carr applying the tag to retire the side.

Chumbley led off the bottom half with an infield hit, and No. 9 hitter Keaton Floor doubled him to third. Meredith and McIntire followed with back-to-back sacrifice flies to cut the margin to 7-3.

Hostetler retired Warner, Wood and Grant Knudson – the 3-4-5 hitters in the order – on three fly balls in the fourth, and North Miami chipped away further at the lead in the bottom half.

Carr led off with a walk, but Bennett threw him out trying to steal. Smith then doubled to deep right-center, and Hostetler easily reached third after clobbering a liner over Wood’s head in center.

Floyd fell behind 0-2, worked the count full and then fought off an inside pitch and grounded out to second to score courtesy runner Aidan Adams. The lead was down to 7-5.

In the sixth, Ellington singled, and Warner and Wood both walked to load the bases. Grant Knudson hit a foul fly to the right of Carr, but Carr could not locate it and it landed as a harmless foul. On the next pitch, Grant Knudson lined an RBI single while down in the count 0-2 to make it 8-5.

“I felt like that pop-up there at the catcher, if we would have had that, it could have changed things around a little bit," Floor said. “But Quinn was huge. I’m very proud of him.”

Stayton’s grounder through the hole made it 9-5. Kinnison later complimented Hostetler, saying he kept his lineup “off balance.”

Ellington bore down from there. Warner, a sophomore, pitched the regional game against Caston on June 6, and coach Floor was expecting to see Warner. Instead, Kinnison gave the ball to his senior.

“I just had a feeling,” Kinnison said. “He’s a senior. We were here three years ago when he was a freshman, and he played in that game. He’s been in that environment before. He’s a good leader. I just felt like he was going to throw strikes and give us a chance. … We talked through it as a staff, and we just felt Brady, with his experience, would be the guy we wanted on the mound.”

Coach Floor was asked about North Miami’s tournament run. They trailed Northfield 2-1 with one out in the seventh inning in their sectional quarterfinal game May 28, but they came back to win that game 3-2 on Meredith’s walk-off hit by pitch.

They won their next three games by a combined score of 29-5.

“It’s funny because I was talking to one of my football coaches," coach Floor said. “Kinda the same scenario back when they won state (in 1993). They got down, and then something happens, and then you just go with it, you know. We knew that was going to be a tight game, and it just fell in our lap, and the boys took off, and we made one heck of a run. I couldn't be more proud of them, from where we started with this young team to where we finished. It’s what every coach would like to have.

“It was rough there at the beginning, but they all came together and played good ball.”

The rest of the regional

In the other semifinal, No. 1 Kouts took down No. 10 Rossville 9-1. Kouts then went on to rout Fort Wayne Blackhawk 13-1 in five innings to win their second straight semistate title Saturday night.

Kouts will face No. 4 Northeast Dubois at 8 p.m. Friday at Victory Field in the state championship game.

Fort Wayne Blackhawk 9, North Miami 5

FW Blackhawk 340 002 0 – 9 15 1

North Miami 102 200 0 – 5 5 2

WP – Brady Ellington (7 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 7 K)

LP – Braylon McIntire (1 ⅓ IP, 7 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 0 BB, 0 K)

2B – Maxwell Warner (FWB), Keaton Floor (NM), Logan Smith (NM)

3B – Grant Knudson (FWB), Chip Bennett (FWB), Quinn Hostetler (NM)

FORT WAYNE BLACKHAWK

1. Hudson Amstutz (LF) – 1-4, R

2. Brady Ellington (P) – 3-5

Max Akers (CR) – 2 R