Despite clutch hits from Casper, Rossville beats Zebras on walk-off at Howard County Invite

Also: Cory Good remembers the late Matt Stone

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Brady Coleman

KOKOMO — In a rematch between Carson Paulik and Eli Barnes, this time it was Rossville who got their revenge.

Evan McDonald had two hits and two RBIs, including the walk-off RBI single in the seventh to lead the Rossville baseball team to a 4-3 win over Rochester at Northwestern High School Friday in the first round of the Howard County Invitational.

Rossville will play Northwestern in the semifinals at 10 a.m. today. Northwestern knocked off Adams Central 5-3 in the other first-round game at Northwestern.

Rochester will play Adams Central in the losers bracket at 10 a.m. today at Eastern (Greentown). Eastern lost to Bluffton 2-1 in eight innings in their first-round game.

If Rochester beats Adams Central, they will play Eastern at 3 p.m. If Rochester loses to Adams Central, they will play Eastern at 12:30 p.m.

Parker Casper had two RBI singles, and Brady Coleman also had an RBI single for Rochester, who fell to 1-4 with the loss. They have lost their last three games by scores of 3-2, 4-2 and 4-3 to Madison, John Glenn and Rossville, respectively.

“It’s just the little stuff right now,” Rochester coach Cory Good said. “We’ve played some really good opponents. This is what we’ve got to be in these types of games. We’re right there. It’s just the little things. We’ll get them cleaned up. Everybody seems to be in a good head space and not putting too much pressure on themselves. Go out and have fun and play with some confidence. We’re getting there.”

Rochester beat Rossville 2-0 in the semifinals of this tournament last year. Paulik pitched a three-hitter to outduel Barnes, who pitched a four-hitter and retired 14 consecutive batters at one point.

This time, Barnes handed the ball off to reliever Zac Wainscott in the top of the seventh with two on and one out and Rossville leading 3-2.

Casper lined Wainscott’s first pitch to right-center for a line drive single. Linden Wilburn scored from second, just beating the throw home to tie the game.

Wainscott then walked Paulik to load the bases but came back to strike out Brant Beck looking and Conner Dunfee swinging to end the inning.

Casper took over on the mound in the bottom of the seventh after Paulik went the first six.

Casper got ahead of Daulton Faucett, Rossville’s No. 9 batter, 1-2 in the count but then hit Faucett with a pitch.

Up to this point, Rochester had played errorless defense. Andrew Woollen laid down a sacrifice bunt towards third. The throw to first arrived at the same time as Woollen, who knocked it out of the first baseman’s glove. Woollen was safe, and Faucett advanced all the way to third.

Wainscott then hit a low liner at Paulik, now playing third base, and the runners held.

Rochester coach Cory Good visited the mound. They elected to walk Nolan Britt, who had homered and tripled in his previous two at-bats, to load the bases.

McDonald then lined a hit to left to foil the strategy and end the game and make a winner out of Wainscott.

Dunfee was the only Rochester hitter to hit the ball out of the infield against Barnes over the first four innings, and Rossville took a 2-0 lead on Woollen’s two-out RBI single in the third and the left-handed slugging Britt’s no-doubt homer to deep right in the fourth.

The Zebras got to Barnes in the fifth.

Zakk Parks reached when his grounder to the left side was bobbled by the third baseman for an error. Parks then stole second. Wilburn walked.

Parks then tried to steal third with Liam Spence up and Rossville anticipating a bunt. Rossville had the wheel play on, meaning that Wainscott, who was playing shortstop at the time, had to hustle to third and handle the throw as the third baseman was charging in.

Britt, the catcher, threw and Wainscott hustled over and made an acrobatic lunging tag on Parks for the first out.

Wilburn stole second. Spence struck out looking.

Coleman then looped a single to shallow left-center. Third base coach Jeff Hines waved in Wilburn. Faucett charged in from left field, and his throw to Britt at the plate appeared to beat Wilburn, but the home plate umpire ruled that Wilburn slid in just before the tag.

It was 2-1, and Coleman reached second on the throw. Coleman then stole third and scored when Casper lined a single that Wainscott could not corral on the short hop. The game was tied.

Paulik then singled, and Casper advanced to third on a wild pickoff throw, but Brant Beck grounded to first to end the inning.

“He just threw a lot of different pitches for strikes,” Good said of Barnes. “We felt like he could throw any of his pitches in any count. We saw him last year, a Paulik-Barnes matchup. We beat them 2-0. We knew it was going to be a dogfight today. I’m proud of the way that we went about our approach at the plate. I think the sixth was a little disappointing, where I think we held him to six or eight pitches after he’s getting up to 90 or so. … But I’m proud of the way we competed at the plate. We’re right there. It’s fun to go to battle every day. We want to be on the other side of some of these, but we feel like we’re right there.”

Rossville had two on with one out in the bottom of the fifth, but Paulik got Woollen on a pop to short and Wainscott on a called third strike.

Britt led off the bottom of the sixth with a triple down the first baseline, and McDonald singled past a drawn-in infield to put Rossville back up 3-2.

Paulik would escape with no further damage.

Rossville coach Brad Scott knew that Paulik would be a tough mound opponent.

“First off, hats off to coach Good over there and everything he does,” Scott said. “Nothing but the utmost respect for him. Honestly, we were excited for this game – another rematch of Paulik and Barnes. Paulik, he’s a dawg on the mound. And they’re just like us when Barnes is on the mound. They’re a different team when Paulik’s on the mound. We’re different. They’re different. But last year was a 2-0 game, and they got the better of us.

“As the game went on, yeah, definitely, I thought they made some adjustments with Barnes. They started to hit his offspeed a little bit, and not only that, though, they were attacking earlier in counts, it seemed like, as the game went on. They made some adjustments and really started using the right side of the field there. … It was tough. It was a back and forth game. It was just a great game.”

Remembering Matt Stone

It could be said that Good knew Wabash athletic director Matt Stone better than most. Good owns the Winning Edge, and they did regular business with Stone.

Stone also coached against the Zebras when he was the baseball as well as the boys basketball and girls basketball coach there. Stone also also coached various sports at Jac-Cen-Del and Hebron high schools.

Stone, who is the father of Rochester athletic director Cal Stone, died Thursday. He had been battling cancer. He was 58.

“Just with the business that I’m in with The Winning Edge, Matt’s been a customer and friend of ours for years,” Good said. “One that I think back on when I was young, screen-printing and going on the road with these guys when I was in junior high. I was reflecting these past couple days, and I haven’t told this story to the Stones yet, but one of the first memories I have was going with Marvin Davis into Wabash High School in the middle of the summer, and he’s got the MLB Draft on. And we’re watching the draft. Just a great person. He’s an Apache for life. He was in all kinds of different roles. And he touched a lot of people’s lives. Just the relationship that I had with him through work and then with being baseball coach and hanging out in the press box during sectional games and stuff like that, he’s really a guy that a lot of people are going to miss.”

Rossville 4, Rochester 3

Rochester 000 020 1 – 3 6 1

Rossville 001 101 1 – 4 6 3

WP – Zac Wainscott (⅔ IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K)

LP – Parker Casper (⅓ IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K)

3B – Nolan Britt (RV)

HR – Nolan Britt (RV)