EDWARDSVILLE – It was a very-well played game by both sides, but in the end, the Rawlings Xtreme of St. Louis scored the only run of the game in the opening inning in winning over the Edwardsville High Under-17 summer team 1-0 in a round-robin game of the Saint Louis University/SIU-Edwardsvile/Lindenwood University All-College Wood Bat Freedom Classic tournament Saturday evening at Tom Pile Field.
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It’s a Fourth of July weekend tournament that allows only old-school wooden bats to be used instead of aluminum bats, and it was the Tigers’ first loss of the tournament in a hard-fought game.
“It was a well-played game on both sides,” said Tiger under-17 head coach Craig Ohlau. “If you crunched the numbers, though, we had more base runners at the end of the day than they did. And you know, baseball’s a game of inches, and we were a couple of inches away on a couple of plays that we could have kind of broken open and scored a few, and took this one from them. But, that’s just the way it is sometimes.”
The Tigers lost a potential game-tying run in the fifth when Jacob Kitchen was thrown out at the plate on a close call, and in the sixth, Evan Funkhouser hit a line shot toward third that was snared by the third baseman and turned into a double play.
“Like I said, it was a game of inches,”Ohlau said about Kitchen being thrown out at the plate. “The outfielder was bobbling the ball in center, and Kitch, he didn’t get a great read off the bat. It was wood bats, and the ball’s going to die a little quicker, and it died, and he could have gotten a better read, and I thought he could have made it, and I thought maybe he did make it. But sometimes, the calls and the games go against you.”
And the line drive turned into a double play was also a key moment in the game as well.
“Well, that’s baseball,” Ohlau said, “and that’s just like I was saying about the game of inches. If that ball’s a little bit, you know, six inches more to his left, we’ve got first and third on a hit-and-run with one out, and it’s a whole different game.”
The Xtreme scored the game’s only run in the home half of the first, starting with back-to-back lead-off walks to Cameron Roll and Jack Rhodes. Roll was caught stealing at third, as Edwardsville catcher Zak Zoelzer made a great throw to third to get Roll, with Rhodes going to second on the play. Nic Ondrey was then called out on strikes on a good pitch from Tiger starter Logan Cromer, who fanned five in a complete game on the evening. Tommy Hillgartner drew a pass, and Bryce Ruiz stroked a solid single to left to score Rhodes and advance Hillgartner to third to make it 1-0. Ruiz then stole second, but Tyler Cann flew to center to end the inning.
Xtreme starter Henry McIntosh started out hot striking out the side in the first, and fanning seven of the Tigers’ first nine batsman en route to a 10-strikeout performance over five innings, allowing only four hits in that time. Kitchen had a lead-off single in the second, but was caught stealing second as McIntosh faced the minimum through the first three innings.
Meanwhile, Cromer was pitching well also, retiring 10 in a row after giving up the RBI single, not allowing a baserunner until the fifth when Cann lead off with a single, the only other hit for the Xtreme on the evening. Adam Lange sacrificed and reached on an error, but Cann was thrown out trying to advance to third when first baseman Gavin Reames made a great throw to third to get Cann. Riley Mabe was called out on strikes, and Trevor Curl flew to center to end the inning.
Earlier, in the top of the fifth, the Tigers had their best chance to draw level, as Kitchen led off with a walk, and after a strikeout, Zoelzer singled Kitchen to second, and Ryan Kulasekara singled to center, which was bobbled by the center fielder, but he recovered to throw Kitchen out at the plate on a very close play to preserve the Xtreme lead at 1-0. Reames then drew a walk, but a strikeout ended the inning.
In the sixth, Lange came over from first base to take over as pitcher, and after a ground out to start the inning, Weston Slemmer stroked a solid single to left. Funkhouser, on a 1-1 offering, hit a line shot down the third base line that was snared nicely by Ruiz, who’s throw to first doubled off Slemmer, who was off with the pitch on a hit-and-run. Lange then struck out the final two batters on called strikes in the seventh to preserve the 1-0 win.
“The pitchers pitched, threw strikes out of the zone,” Ohlau said, “defenses played well. It was a matter of who was going to get the key hit, who was going to catch the breaks."
The Tigers and Xtreme play each other again Sunday morning at Lindenwood University in St. Charles., Mo., in a game that starts at 11 a.m., and it was Edwardsville’s first loss in the tournament after winning their opening three games. Ohlau is looking forward to the day’s competition.
“Well, we advance to tomorrow,” Ohlau said. “We’re still in this. We’re 3-1, we’re going to get the Wild Card berth into tomorrow; we might see that team again. And we’ve got a couple of good arms ready to go tomorrow, so it’s going to be a lot of fun, see how it all shakes out on Sunday.”
And after the tournament, the Tigers have two weekends left before the end of the summer season, and Ohlau is looking ahead to seeing how things go in the final two weeks.
“We continue on,” Ohlau said. “We’ve got two more weekends of ball, and then, that’s going to be all she wrote for the summer season, and then, we’ll go from there.”
Chris Rhodes also contributed to this story.
