EDWARDSVILLE – The Metro East Bears hadn't played for some two-and-a-half weeks going into their American Legion Great Lakes Regional first-round game against Pickerington, Ohio, Wednesday night.
Based on what happened at SIU-Edwardsville's Roy E. Lee Field, the time off may not have hurt them s the Bears bounced back from an early 1-0 deficit with a five-run fourth inning and a six-run seventh – including a grand-slam homer from Drake Hampton – to advance with a 13-1, seven-inning win over Pickerington.
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The Bears will take on Beloit, Wis., at 7 p.m. today in a winner's bracket semifinal match of the tournament; Beloit defeated Shelbyville, Ky., 8-0 earlier in the day to move on; Pickerington was relegated to the loser's bracket of the tournament, where they will face Shelbyville at 1 p.m. today in an elimination game.
VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH BEARS MANAGER KEN SCHAAKE BELOW:
“I'm very, very pleased with the kids,” said Bears manager Ken Schaake. “All you can hope for is that the kids come out and play up to their potential; you can't ask them to do things that they're not capable of doing. But at the beginning of the year, I said they're all capable of running and we put some pressure on them (with their running game).
“Our speed came into play a little bit there; I'm very, very pleased with the effort by the kids all the way around.”
Hampton helped ignite the Bears' initial rally in the third with a leadoff single in the fourth and came around to score off an error after Chance Foss had flied out. “We were up, we had fire, and after that play, it just gave us more momentum,” Hampton said. “We got that run after that; it was a new ball game. We got more energy, more momentum after that.
“Hopefully, this is a good sign of us turning back on as a team; really, I feel like this is the first game we played like a team. Everybody was together, everybody was up the entire game, we were never down. After that first run scored (by Pickerington in the bottom of the first), we knew it was a nine-inning ball game and we had a fol of ball left.”
VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH PICKERTON, OHIO, MANAGER CHRIS WEBER BELOW:
“They hit the ball,” said Pickerington manager Chris Weber. “There's nothing you can do about that; they had some pretty good hits. I don't think our starting pitcher (Thomas Green) was as comfortable as he wanted to be, so that was basically it. We didn't hit the ball after the first couple of innings; (later on in the game) we got in situations where (winning pitcher Jake Garella) could use his off-speed pitch and we didn't get after him on the fastball pitches we had earlier.”
Pickerington had jumped on top in the first when Connor Ayers led off with a triple and came home on a one-out Evan Young single, but Garella got the last two batters out to keep it a 1-0. Metro East seemingly had a chance to get going in the third when they loaded the bases on two-out singles from Steven Pattan and Cole Cimarolli and a Collin Clayton walk, but Green got Garella to ground out to end the threat.
That led to the Bears' fourth-inning explosion; Hampton scored when he went to third after Foss' flyout to right-fielder Brandon Harlan and Harlan threw trying to get Hampton out. The throw was on-target but glanced off Hampton and got away from third baseman Evan Young enough to allow Hampton to score. Mitchell Krebs, who had singled earlier, went to third on the play and Cole Hansel drew a walk to put runners on the corners. Pattan singled in Krebs to give the Bears the lead and Cimarolli then doubled in Pattan when he found an opening between several Pickerington fielders on a popup to the outfield to extend the lead to 3-1.
Cimarolli then scored when Clayton reached on an error and Garella singled to end the outburst; Garella then shut Pickerington down the rest of the way and got some more help in the sixth when Hampton singled in Pattan and Clayton to extend the lead to 7-1.
The Bears then put the coupe de grace on the game with a six-run outburst, highlighted by a Hampton grand slam that brought in Cimarolli, Clayton and Garella ahead of Hampton; Foss and Pattan had scored earlier in the inning thanks to aggressive baserunning and timely hitting.
Hampton had gotten the count to 3-0 and Schaake gave him the green light to hit away, turning on an AJ Snyder fastball and sending it over the fence in left. “It felt great,” Hampton said. “I looked down at coach Schaake and he gave me the green light and I tried to drive the ball.”
Cimarolli had a 2-for-4 night with two doubles, two runs scored and a RBI, with Clayton 3-for-4 with a RBI and two runs scored, Garella 2-for-4 with a RBI and run scored, Hampton 3-for-5 with the homer, six RBIs and two runs scored, Krebs 3-for-5 with a runs cored, Foss 2-for-5 with a run scored, Pattan 4-for-4 with two RBIs and three runs scored and Hansel had a run scored. Ayers, Young and Mitch Lohr each had hits (Ayers had a triple) for Pickerington.
Garella got the win for the Bears, going six innings and giving up an earned run while fanning five; Storm Coffman pitched the seventh and retired the side with just a walk. Green took the loss, going 4.1 innings and giving up five earned runs while fanning two.
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