Andrean wins 3A State Championship with 6-1 win over Jasper

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith

6-24-2010

Andrean played Jasper for the 3A State Championship title at Victory Field in Indianapolis, IN. (All Photos by Mark Smith)

Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
ANDREAN (29-6)	0	0	3	3	0	0	0	6	8	1
JASPER (30-6)	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	5	3

Saturday, 6-19-2010 - Class 3A State Championship, 89-degrees at Victory Field at Indianapolis, IN

WP - Ken Mahala (10-0) CHG, 7K, 1 walk (101 pitches)
LP - Spencer Sapp (12-3) CG, 5Ks, 2 walks (95 pitches)

ANDREAN (29-6)
Vince Tornincasa (CF) 2-for-4
Mark Pishkur (2B) 0-for-3, walk
Ken Mahala (P) double, 3 RBIs
PJ Mason (RF) 0-for-3, walk
Matt Doolin (1B) 1-for-4, triple, run scored
Jordan Falls (C) 1-for-3, HBP, RBI
Zach Goldasich (DH) 2-for-3
Tyler Ochi (3B) 1-for-2, HBP
Mike Brosseau (SS) 0-for-3, RBI

JASPER (30-6)
Caleb Begele (SS) 1-for-3, walk
Austin Aherns (RF) 0-for-2, walk
Spencer Sapp (P) 1-for-3, HR
Dane Giesler (DH) 0-for-3
Blake Blessinger (3B) 0-for-3
Tory Hall (C) 1-for-3, triple
Scot Wendholt (CF) 1-for-3
Nick Gobert (2B) 0-for-3
Eric Schnaus (LF) 0-for-1, HBP

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (6-19-2010) All year long it was the accepted logic that the 2010 Andrean 59ers were not as good as the 2009 team that won the 3A state championship and won its last 31 games in a row. I agree. But it has to be said. Of all three Andrean state baseball championship wins, the most dominant was Saturday.

In the bright sunny heat and humidity of downtown Indianapolis, the Niners, in a 'rebuilding' season, scored six runs (they could have scored 10) and led all the way to turn back second-ranked Jasper 6-1 and win the school's third Class 3A baseball championship.

On the floor of Indy's 14,000-seat Victory Field, this wasn't that close a game. Senior right-hander Ken Mahala (10-0) completed an undefeated season with his third consecutive complete-game victory, striking out seven and allowing five hits and a walk. The second time through the batting order, Andrean got five base hits off Jasper all-stater Spencer Sapp (12-3), scoring six times against a pitcher who had tossed three consecutive shutouts. If not for four outstanding catches by Jasper senior center fielder Scott Wendholt, the final score could have been at least 11-1.

A five-run win in the state finals is one thing. A 6-1 win over Jasper is quite another. Jasper (30-6) is a five-time state baseball champion and they were 5-0 in state title games. The Wildcats, backed by maybe 1500 fans from southern Indiana's Dubois County, got just five base hits and were never in the game after the third inning.

It was the third state championship in six years for Andrean's 31-year coach Dave Pishkur, the second with son Ryne Pishkur as coach, but the first with son Mark as the regular second baseman.

"He always gets stronger as the game goes on," sophomore second baseman Mark PIshkur said. "So to see him out there in the first couple of innings (Mahala struck out the side in the second inning), I was thinking, 'What's he going to do today?' You don't have to play that much defense with him out there. You get two or three runs and you know you've got a good shot to win."

"It feels great to win," said coach Dave Pishkur. "That team over there (Jasper) has all those sectionals (33) and all those state titles (five). Yeah, I'm a little surprised we won like this. We did prepare well against them all week. Fortunately, last week (against New Haven at the South Bend Semistate), we faced a lefty and we'd worked for six days and then we played a big game against him. They came out with pretty much the same lefty."

"We really hit the ball. We didn't score in the first. We never seem to score in the first. I don't know what that is. But when we got to the 7-8-9 guys came up, they got us on the board. Goldy (Goldasich) came up big. Kenny got the big two-out base hit. Their center fielder deserves the player of the game. He probably deserves the player of the game."

"But I've got three great assistant coaches and 19-20 ballplayers who come out everyday and work in the off-season to get better. They get all the credit. I just happen to be at some of the practices."

Obviously, Pishkur, who won his 751st career game (24 per season) might have done more than just show up. Andrean outscored seven playoff opponents by a combined score of 62-9 and they didn't do it without coaching. But the boys in uniform were very good on the day when it most mattered.

Sapp, a hard-throwing left-hander, didn't seem to be throwing that hard on this day. He struck out batters to end the first two hitless innings, but Andrean designated-hitter Zach Goldasich started the three-run third inning with a slicing single to left field. Holdasich was picked off second base by Sapp, but singles by Tyler Ochi and Vince Tornincasa and an error by Jasper shortstop Caleb Begele filled the bases with two out.

There was a murmur in the crowd as Mahala walked slowly to the plate and sliced the first pitch in top the left field corner, driving in three runs. Sapp has not allowed a run in 24-1/3 innings prior to that base hit and Jasper was never the same after that one swing.

Goldasich singled in the 59ers three-run fourth and he was robbed of an RBI when Wendholt raced deep into right and grabbed his deep line drive. Pretty good for someone who was not even in the stadium when Andrean won the 2009 title.

"I was on the freshman team," Goldasich said, "working on my swing. That's where I was. I couldn't come. I had a (summer league) game that day. I watch it on U-Tube every day. I wass just trying to make good contact. We've been working on batting against left-handed pitching. That first hit, he (Sapp) hung a curve ball. I just had to take advantage of it. To be here now? This is unbelievable."

"He's just a good hitter," said coach Pishkur. "He'll be our first baseman next season and he's been working hard. There was just a better guy (Matt Doolin) ahead of him. He's come a long way."

Jasper had come a long way winning 23 games in a row, but they looked like they were in a state final game for the first time. The Wildcats made three infield errors and when Tory Hall tripled in the fourth inning, he tried to score on a ground ball to third base with his team down 6-0. He was thrown out by Ochi, the 59ers third baseman, and he should have been. To try to score from third with less than two out on a sharp ground ball to third base when you are trailing by six runs is about as bad a fundamental play as you can make.

Andrean, on the other hand, resembled a team that had played in the state title game the year before, even though some of them actually hadn't.

"I'm awfully proud of them," said coach Pishkur. "Those senior kids, except for Mahala, didn't play in this game last year. They had to watch and watch and watch and they came out and they did as great job all year."

"I just want all the credit to go to the boys who went out there and made all the plays today. We executed the bunts. We prep 'em. We prep 'em. We prep 'em. But they went out and did it. This is a big stage. For every fan we had today, they maybe had 20."

But there were a lot of Pishkurs in the stands and on the field. Coach Dave, Ryne and Mark, sister Courtney and the whole family posed for photos with the state title trophy. Mark Pishkur realizes that being coached by his brother and his dad is a snapshot in time that could only happen in a very small window. He suggested that he didn't want to let his family down.

"It's amazing,"' Mark said on the field after the game. "We'll try to make that happen every year. I grew up not being coached by him and now I come out here and it's like I have a little more pressure. I just take it as momentum. Today was just amazing."

STATE FINALS: The 2009 Andrean team outscored six foes 61-10. The 2010 team outscored seven foes 62-9. The 2009 team won its last 31 games. Andrean is 92-10 over the past three seasons, which is the best three-year record in the history of Northwest Indiana high school baseball.

Coach Dave Pishkur is very plain about why Andrean has won three state titles recently when they didn't reach the title game in the first 15 years of his tenure.

"Class sports," he said. "If we'd have had class sports when Billy Finn played, we'd have won a lot of titles. I don't think it takes anything away from our kids. But class sports has helped a lot of schools except for the ones in the largest class."

Billy Finn, the 1990s Andrean football and baseball star, whose brother Tommy (a football and baseball star a decade later) is an assistant coach at Andrean, is an assistant coach at Cathedral, which lost 1-0 to Carroll in 10 innings in the 4A title game late Saturday. Carroll was the only public school to win at the state finals. Lafayette Catholic (1A) and Heritage Christian (2A) were also winners.

In a stroke of irony that seemed scripted, Andrean rookie second baseman Mark Pishkur threw out the final batter on the back end of a double play. Pishkur assisted on the final out in the final inning of each of the final three playoff games to help win the second consecutive state title for his brother and his father.

"I know," he said after the game. "That is strange. We were out there and we got the first out and I said to Mark (shortstop Mark Brousseau), 'You think it's going to happen?' And he said, 'I know what he was thinking,' and I think it is."

Scoring is a matter of judgment, but there wasn't any question that Jasper committed several errors in the state championship game against Andrean Saturday. Shortstop Caleb Begele fumbled Mark Pishkur's third inning ground ball, making all three runs that scored on Ken Mahala's ensuing double unearned. Jasper second baseman Nick Gobert made a bad throw on a certain double-play ball hit by Mike Brosseau in the three-run 59er fourth-inning. And Begele fumbled Matt Doolin's seventh-inning ground ball.

Somehow, Andrean ended up with nine hits and Jasper lefty Spencer Sapp (12-3) was charged with six earned runs. It just didn't happen that way.

Piskhur has a special connection to Jasper, going back 30 years.

"I've know Terry (Jasper coach Terry Gobert) for a long time," he said. "A couple of my first year players, Dan Dakich and Kevin Custer, both went to school with him at IU. Terry and Kevin Custer were roommates. It was hard for him to watch this game, I know. His old school against his college roommate."

"Dan Dakich? We golfed 27 holes and I was on his radio show (carried in NW Indiana on WLPR-FM) on Friday. He tried to have me predict the win. I can't do that."

Mark Pishkur said that while it seems he was destined to play for the 59ers once he got old enough, in fact he says it was understood, but never stated.

"When you start out, you get your kids started in sports," Mark said. "Then he puts you on a traveling teams and I said, 'We'll I guess this is my game'. He never said I had to play baseball, but then again, he never said I didn't have to."

Andrean was charged with an error Saturday when Dane Geisler struck out on a breaking ball in the dirt in the sixth-inning. Andrean catcher Jordan Falls picked up the ball, but his throw to first hit Geisler in the back and bounced away. Replays showed that Geisler was running inside the first base line, which means he should have been called out when the ball struck him. The umpires didn't see it that way.

2010 Andrean (29-6)
Coach Dave Pishkur (31st season - 751-236) 33-2 (2009), 30-2 (2008)

4-1 (L) 10-16 Lemont, Ill.
4-3 (W) 4-2 Gavit
4-6 (W) 6-2 Clark (21-10)
4-8 (W) 10-0 Illiana Christian (24-11)
4-10 (W) 4-2 at Penn (23-6)
4-13 (W) 17-4 (5 inn.) at Lowell (12-13-1)
4-15 (W) 7-0 at Griffith (10-20)
4-17 (W) 13-7 at Chesterton (4-19)
4-19 (W) 3-2 Kankakee Valley (16-13)
4-21 (W) 6-2 (Chicago Heights, Ill.) Marian Catholic
4-23 (L) 5-6 Highland (20-11)
4-24 (L) 4-5 Bishop Noll (23-6)
4-27 (L) 3-5 Munster (23-9)
4-29 (W) 7-2 Hobart (6-20)

4-29 (rain) Brebuef Invitational

5-3 (W) 6-5 Lowell (12-13-1) 8 innings
5-4 (W) 12-3 Naperville Central (38-4) at Notre Dame
5-5 (W) 7-4 Griffith (10-20)
5-6 (L) 3-13 (5 inn.) Cathedral (31-2)
5-7 (W) 10-0 at Kankakee Valley (16-13)
5-9 (W) 6-3 Gavit (8-16)
5-9 (W) 11-0 Gavit (8-16)
5-13 (W) 7-2 Highland (19-10)
5-17 (W) 8-2 Munster (23-9)
5-19 (W) 12-4 Hobart (6-20)

Carmel Invitational
5-21 (L) 2-8 Lafayette Catholic (28-7)
5-21 (W) 12-0 (FW) Northrup

5-24 (W) 11-0 Merrillville (10-16)
5-25 (W) 7-3 (Burbank, Ill.) Reavis

Andrean (3A) Sectional
5-27 (W) 10-0 (5 inn.) Knox
5-29 (W) 15-0 (5 inn.) Griffith (11-21)
5-29 (W) 5-2 Kankakee Valley (16-13)

Plymouth (3A) Regional
6-5 (W) 12-3 (SB) St. Joseph's (21-8)
6-5 (W) 9-2 Western (20-6)

South Bend (3A) Semistate
6-12 (W) 5-1 New Haven (22-8)

State (3A) Championship
6-19 (W) 6-1 Jasper (30-6) state title