Bunts, interference call spark Rochester’s win over Valley

Reinartz homers, Ferverda adds 3 RBIs, Bowers goes 3 for 3

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Drew Bowers Braxton Alderfer

Tippecanoe Valley pitcher Gage Hileman retired four of the first five batters he faced against host Rochester at Bob Copeland Field Saturday when Zakk Parks bunted for a hit in the bottom of the second inning.

It could be argued that the game was never the same.

Rochester would score two runs that inning and seven more in the third – a rally started by a Tanner Reinartz homer and all coming after the first two batters were retired – and would go on to win 10-1.

Rochester, ranked No. 4 in Class 2A, improved to 15-2. Valley dropped to 2-13.

Brady Coleman allowed one run over three innings for the win. Parker Casper and Conner Dunfee pitched two scoreless innings each of relief. They combined on a four-hitter.

Valley scored first on Braxton Alderfer’s opposite-field RBI single to right in the first, scoring Jamison Phillips. They would never advance another runner as far as third base after that.

Dunfee, Callen Ferverda and Drew Bowers, the Nos. 7-9 hitters in the Rochester lineup, went a combined 5 for 8 with seven RBIs.

Parks stole second after his bunt single. Dunfee’s fielder’s choice grounder led to a Valley defender interfering with Parks and Parks getting in a rundown. Parks drew a wild throw, but on the return throw, it appeared as though he was thrown out at third, but because of the interference call, Parks was ruled safe, and Dunfee reached second on the back end of the play.

Ferverda’s sacrifice fly to center field tied the game 1-1 and moved Dunfee to third. Bowers followed with a two-out bunt single, just beating third baseman Alderfer’s off-balance throw to first to score Dunfee and give Rochester their first lead.

“Huge,” Rochester coach Cory Good said of the bunts. “Really got us going. We’ve been trying to get a squeeze down here for a few games and called one with two outs, and Drew executed that great. We saw (the) third (baseman) back with two outs and knew if he could just get one down anywhere, he was going to be safe. … That kind of opened the floodgates there.”

Valley’s defense was on point to start the bottom of the third. Phillips made a running snag in deep left on Coleman’s fly. And Alderfer made a diving stop on Casper’s grounder and threw him out.

Reinartz then cranked a long liner to deep left down the line for a homer. Carson Paulik singled. Brant Beck reached on an infield single. Parks was hit by a pitch. Dunfee then floated a liner into left-center for a two-run single.

Dunfee has hit safely in eight of his last nine games. He said he has been working with assistant coach Dave Baillieul on his hitting.

“At the beginning of the season, I was kind of struggling,” Dunfee said. “I wasn’t really using my hips. Dave has worked a lot with me over the past few weeks to get my hips activated. I feel like once I started doing that, I started to see more improvement in my hitting. I was able to hit the ball harder and send it the other way. So really big thanks to Dave for helping me with that.”

Parks went to third on the hit, and Dunfee advanced to second on the throw to third. 

Ferverda then dropped a bloop hit into right field to tally Parks and Dunfee. In a span of two batters, the lead had gone from 3-1 to 7-1.

Courtesy runner Trenton Meadows stole second and scored when Bowers lined a double to right. Coleman followed with another RBI double to make it 9-1.

“I think it just bottled up that inning,” Valley coach Clayton Adamson said. “The home run was a home run. It’s just get back to it. We just had a couple dink hits for them and put some runs on their board. We have that one inning all the time. … We had a 1-0 lead to start the game out. We just need to keep on winning innings.”

Said Good of the third inning: “It’s kind of contagious, you know. Once people start getting going, everybody kind of follows.”

Linden Wilburn scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the sixth to complete the scoring.

Rochester struck out just twice off Hileman and reliever Parker Adamson. Valley’s pitchers came in with a 9.77 staff ERA.

“We knew that going in that these guys aren’t going to strike anybody out most of the time, and they’re a really good hitting team,” coach Adamson said. “We’ve got pitchers that have a motivation to throw strikes, and our defense is going to have to make plays, and we did that today and made some plays for us. Count that one error on that pickle thing, but I thought we played really well.”

Rochester 10, Tippecanoe Valley 1

Valley 100 000 0 – 1 4 1

Rochester 027 001 X – 10 11 0

WP – Brady Coleman (3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K)

LP – Gage Hileman (2 ⅔ IP, 9 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 1 HBP, 0 K)

2B – Brady Coleman (RHS), Drew Bowers (RHS)

HR – Tanner Reinartz (RHS)