Friday, July 25, 2008 11:10 PM CDT
Decatur walks past Post 88 in 14th inning
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
MATTOON -- After entering the game as a 10th-inning defensive replacement, striking out in his first at-bat and then bunting for a sacrifice, Logan Causey had the chance to be a hero.
He came to bat with bases loaded in the bottom of the 14th inning with two outs and bases loaded for Decatur Post 105.
“I wasn’t really think walk but in the back of my mind I knew it was as good as a hit,” Causey said.
After all, that kind of thing is rather drilled into Decatur coach Gene Howell’s players’ minds.
“We work on that,” Howell said. “We talk patience. That’s the biggest thing we have going.”
Decatur showed enough patience for four straight walks in the bottom of the ninth to make up a two-run deficit and extend the game and then when Causey drew the 14th walk issued by Mattoon Post 88 pitchers on the day, Kirk Neibuhr was forced home giving Decatur a 4-3 win in Friday’s winners’ bracket showdown of the American Legion baseball 19th District tournament at Grimes Field.
The 14-inning marathon win clinched one of the district’s two Fourth Division berths for Decatur, which is 26-7 and the last remaining unbeaten team in the double-elimination tournament going into today’s 11 a.m. championship game against the losers’ bracket survivor of a late Friday game. If Decatur loses today’s first game, it gets a second chance for the title and a first-round bye in next week’s Division tourney to be played at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington with Lincoln serving as host.
Mattoon was forced to play a late Friday game hoping to get the other Division berth and another shot against Decatur in the district final.
That game went past JG/T-C deadline as the second and third games were pushed back by the 3-hour, 44-minute, 14-inning affair.
“This might have been the best game we played all year,” Mattoon coach Steve Metzger said. “This was the best game of the tournament.”
Mattoon outhit Decatur 11-6 but with four Post 88 pitchers combining to allow 14 walks, the district tournament host had to pull an escape act just to stay alive after losing its 3-1 lead in the ninth inning.
Andrew Agee drew a bases-loaded walk in the ninth for Decatur and then when Chad Woolpert’s game-tying sacrifice fly was dropped in the outfield, Post 105 had bases loaded again with no outs and the golden opportunity to win.
But on Neihbur’s bouncing ball, Mattoon third baseman Ryan Willison threw home for force out.
Catcher Vince Anello’s throw to first for a double play attempt bounced away from Tyler Brandenburg, but second baseman Trevor Buford picked up the carom and fired home to Anello, who tagged out Brady Phillips.
Shane Hood, the third Mattoon pitcher, got a strikeout to send the game into extra innings.
Again in the 10th Decatur had a runner on third with one out after base hits by Shawn Trudeau and Daniel Peters, but a botched squeeze play stopped that threat.
Hood recorded his sixth strikeout in his five scoreless relief innings with one out in the 13th inning.
Meanwhile, Nathan Grimmitt was pitching 7 2/3 scoreless relief innings for Decatur.
That gave Decatur its chance in the bottom of 14th which started with Neibuhr’s double that brought Buford to the mound in place of Hood.
After a ground out, Mattoon intentionally walked David Peters, who drove home Decatur’s first run with a sacrifice fly in the third inning and also had a deep fly out in the 12th.
Trudeau walked to load the bases and Daniel Peters, who had walked four times and singled, hit a ball back to Buford who threw home for the first out.
Causey worked the count full, fouled off a pitch and then did not have to bother with the next delivery.
“It wasn’t really that close,” he said of the pitch for the walk-off walk.
This helped Decatur erase some of the memories of last year’s 16-inning loss to Litchfield in a Fourth Division game.
“I’ve been in a lot of these,” said Howell, who is in his 28th year coaching legion baseball. “I’ve been on both sides. The whole secret of it is this is why you flip (a coin before the game) to see who is the home team.”
The pregame coin flip determining the last at-bat certainly became a factor in helping Decatur beat Mattoon for the third time in four meetings this summer.
Mattoon seemed headed toward a win in the biggest battle scoring two runs in the first inning when Buford singed, Jeremy Jordan walked and Willison hit a two-run double to left field.
Buford and Willison both had three hits in the game for Mattoon, which padded its lead to 3-1 in the sixth on Tyler Brandenburg’s single.
Mattoon starting pitcher Cory Ames allowed only one hit but walked six batters in six innings seeking his second win in this week’s district tournament.
But eventually came Decatur’s four-run ninth inning in which it scored two runs without a base hit.
“It’s a funny game,” Metzger said. “Both teams showed a lot of heart.”
Mattoon 200 001 000 000 00 - 3-11-3
Decatur 001 000 002 000 01 - 4-6-0
Winning pitcher: Nathan Grimmit 7 2/3 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs, 1 strikeout, 1 walk.
MATTOON: Trevor Buford 3 singles; Ryan Willison double, 2 singles, RBI; Vince Anello single; Colt Davis sacrifice, single; Marshall Creed sacrifice; Tyler Brandenburg 2 singles, RBI; Cody Gass stolen base; Chase Louthan single; Neko White single
DECATUR: Kirk Neibuhr sacrifice, single, double; David Peters sacrifice fly, RBI; Andrew Agee RBI; Chad Woolpert single, sacrifice fly, RBI; Shawn Trudeau single; Daniel Peters single; Logan Casey sacrifice, RBI; Grimmitt single
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
