In ‘higher stakes’ sectional game, early Zebras mistakes costly in loss to Eastern

Good on Rochester’s future: ‘We’re going to have some spots to fill’

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

GREENTOWN — The Rochester baseball coaching staff was familiar with Eastern (Greentown) coach Erik Hisner.

Formerly the coach at Three Rivers Conference rival Whitko, they knew he likes to play small ball, full of bunting and running.

Despite the preparation, it did not pay off in a 6-5 loss in a Class 2A, Sectional 38 semifinal loss to the Comets Saturday.

In Eastern’s four-run first inning, there was a wild throw while trying to get a forceout on a sacrifice bunt, a dropped fly ball in center field and a sacrifice bunt in which an Eastern runner scored all the way from second while his teammate stayed in a rundown.

“I don’t think we had settled into the game yet,” Rochester coach Cory Good said. “I think you call it pressure or high stakes, and I just think that kinda got us rattled early. We knew Hisner teams are going to bunt, and they’re going to run, and they’re going to be aggressive on the bases. We felt confident coming into this game, but the routine plays have got to be made just a little better.  Coming into this game, breathing deep, being ready to go and just handling that higher stakes pressure a little bit better than what we did today.”

Paulik came in with an 0.76 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 46 innings.

Hisner said that against a pitcher like Paulik that his team went with an “unorthodox” strategy.

“The biggest thing was – and we had talked about it for a few weeks now but this week in practice – we’ve got to put the ball in play,” Hisner said. “We’ve got to find ways to force them to make plays. We can’t let them catch strike three 10, 11, 12 times. It took a lot of buy-in from the kids. Obviously, anybody here at the game could tell that, hey, we were going to try to use the short game. If we get guys on base, we’re going to try to move them around and take advantage of maybe some errors if we bunt well and they throw it away. Put pressure on them. Put the ball in play. And then at some point, get a big hit.”

The moment of highest drama might have occurred in the top of the sixth. Eastern was leading 6-4 coming into the inning, and pitcher Colt Snyder retired the first two batters before Liam Spence singled. Brady Coleman walked, and Carson Paulik singled to bring home Spence.

Zakk Parks got a hit on an infield chopper to load the bases.

That brought up Linden Wilburn. Snyder had thrown 119 pitches, one fewer than the maximum allowed. Regardless of the outcome, Wilburn would be his final hitter.

Wilburn fell behind 0-2, took a close pitch for ball one and then hit a liner up the middle toward center field.

Except shortstop Kaleb Hurt was right there to grab it.

“Wow, he was tough,” Hisner said of Snyder. “I don’t know how many at-bats Rochester had in maybe the fourth, fifth and sixth where it’s like, OK, one hit here and they’re going to go ahead and look pretty good the rest of the way. He buckled down. … I thought today was probably the best game he’s pitched with the environment, the situation and the jams that he was in the fifth or sixth with the game hanging in the balance. For him to buckle down and make pitches was huge.”

Wilburn, a sophomore, represents the future of Zebra baseball. He went 1 for 4 at the plate. He also threw a runner out at the plate from right field in the bottom of the sixth.

There are more high stakes games for him to come.

“That’s the kind of swing we want to see,” Good said. “He gets himself down in the counts, but he’s a good two-strike hitter. He’s a guy we’re going to rely on heavily in these next two years. He can play in a variety of spots in the field. Huge there in the bottom of the sixth throwing that runner out at the plate. Still learning, still getting ready for varsity baseball, but he’s going to be a guy for us.”

Parks went 3 for 4. He, Paulik, Callen Ferverda, Conner Dunfee and Brant Beck were the team’s five seniors.

“He’s just tough,” Good said of Parks. “He battles. He’s a great leader. He’s a guy that everybody looks to and respects. All these seniors, we’re going to miss them and what they’ve done for this program. The wins and the postseason run in 2024, it had a lot to do with those guys. We just talked about these next guys learning from them. I use the term ‘leave it better than you found it,’ and I really think that these seniors did that. This next group needs to do the same thing.”

Without Parks, Paulik, Ferverda, Dunfee and Beck, Rochester needs a new ace pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman and designated hitter.

Paulik will play collegiately at Taylor University, who went 56-7 this spring and broke the school record for wins before losing the NAIA national championship game to Tennessee Wesleyan.

“We’re going to have some spots to fill,” Good said. “We’re going to have to have some guys step up. We feel like we’ve got some good underclassmen. We’ve got a good junior high program, and more is coming. I think that we’ll be alright. It’s about getting these young guys and throwing them out there. We’ve got to learn on the fly. … There’s guys that play travel baseball, but it’s 16U (16-and-under) or whatever, you’re going to go out against 18-year-old guys that are seniors in high school, and it’s just getting these guys ready for that. It’ll take some time.”

The rest of the sectional

Eastern won their fifth sectional title in school history with a 3-0 win over Wabash Monday. Wabash had reached the final by beating No. 10 Oak Hill 4-3 in eight innings in Saturday’s other semifinal.

Oak Hill’s 6-3 win over Manchester and Wabash’s 6-0 win over Lewis Cass started the sectional on May 27.

Eastern (Greentown) 6, Rochester 5

Rochester 110 021 0 – 5 9 3

Eastern 400 110 X – 6 8 2

WP – Colt Snyder (6 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 7 K)

LP – Carson Paulik (6 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K)

2B – Cody Tarrh (EAST)