GREENVILLE - It’s been two years in a row the Carrollton Hawks hadn’t made it out of their respective sectional and the last time they did they won the state championship in 2011. The Hawks were a win away from breaking on through.
Unfortunately, they fell short to the talented Valmeyer Pirates 7-4 in the IHSA Class 1A Greenville Sectional final on Saturday. Carrollton’s season ends at 26-7, and Valmeyer advances to the Super Sectionals in Springfield at Lincoln Land Community College at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
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“Valmeyer’s a great team,” Carrollton head coach Jeff Krumwiede said. “They’ve got a great opportunity to continue to make this run last more than this year for them.”
Kolten Bottom went 2-for-3 at the plate with a triple, and Tyler Barnett reached base twice as he was 1-for-2 with a RBI triple.
The Hawks faced two daunting challenges against the Pirates. 1.) The Valmeyer lineup averaged seven runs per game, including 12 during the postseason. 2.) They had to face Philip Reinhardt whose record was 7-1 but had a microscopic 0.79 E.R.A. The lefty freshman had given up nine runs, six earned in 53 innings pitched throughout the course of the season.
In the early going the Hawks played with the Pirates and took advantage of a couple of mistakes.
After a scoreless first inning, Kolten Bottom led off the top of the second with a triple that just evaded the glove of the leftfielder. Tyler Barnett came up after Reinhardt struck out the next two batters and it seemed he would escape when Barnett hit a pop up in the infield. St. Louis was cloudy for most of Saturday, but in Greenville, the sun was shining, which may have caused Reinhardt to lose site of the ball and bounce off his glove. The error gave Carrollton a 1-0 lead.
“There was some messy parts of this game that led to runs for both teams,” Krumwiede said.
Bottom started in his first game in over two weeks because his right shoulder was sore. He held Valmeyer scoreless again in the bottom half of the second inning and in the top of the third, Carrollton added another run when Nathan Walker laced a RBI double to score Gabe Jones to give the Hawks a somewhat shocking 2-0 lead.
“Our guys were getting good swings on Reinhardt, and I thought we had a good chance to continue that,” Krumwiede said. “There’s a lot of pressure in these situations, and it certainly makes you feel good, but you’re aware that anything can happen at any time.”
That’s when the tables turned.
Bottom walked the eight and nine hitters to start off the bottom of the third inning, which spelled trouble and Valmeyer wouldn’t let that opportunity slide with the top of the order coming up. Cole Juelfs made it a one-run game when he roped a single right field, and Easton Wallace gave Valmeyer the lead on a two-run double. The Pirates had added another run before the inning was over to make it 4-2.
“We had a poor inning,” Krumwiede said. “We gave away too many things and made it easy for them to score runs.”
Bottom would go one more inning. He pitched four innings giving up five hits, four earned runs and walked three batters.
A big inning by the offense is exactly what Reinhardt needed to ease the pressure and settle in. The Carrollton bats cooled off as Valmeyer added a run in the fourth and fifth innings to make it 6-2 going into the top of the sixth.
That’s when the Hawks lineup came back to life and wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Carrollton put together a big two-out rally that started with a RBI triple by Barnett into the right field gap that scored Hayden Stringer. Then Blake Struble hit a grounder to the second basemen, but he bobbled the ball and couldn’t make the throw to first base in time.
The Hawks now had a realistic chance to tie the game in the top of the seventh, but Valmeyer put together a two-out rally of their own and scraped across another run, which felt like a grand slam.
Carrollton put two men on base with two outs but finally faded away as Valmeyer’s Drew Maus got Stringer to fly out.
Though it is a sad day for Carrollton nation, they will have plenty to hope for as 13 of the 17 players on the roster are underclassmen, including all of the bullpen and most of the lineup that is used to winning. The junior's career record in high school is 73-22-1 and potentially could be the winningest class in Carrollton baseball history. Next season certainly looks bright, but the players will care more about hardware than numbers.
“We got a lot of guys back. Who knows what will happen and how the chips will fall,” Krumwiede said. “There’s a lot of things to feel good about with this season, and that’s what you have to focus on. A 26-7 record, a conference championship, and a regional championship are somethings that a lot of teams would love to have.”
