Nauracy, Plesac pace Bulldogs to 2-1 win over Penn and 4-2 over Elkhart Central for Regional Title

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith

5-16-2011

Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
CROWN POINT (20-11)	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	2	6	2
PENN (26-5)	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	2	1

Saturday, 6-04-2011 - 92 degrees at LaPorte Regional Semifinal at LaPORTE, IN

WP Nick Nauracy (9-2) CG, 3K, 2 walks, HBP
LP - Kyle Schneider (6-2) 1K 2 walks (5 inn.)

CROWN POINT (20-11)
Zach Plesac (3B) 1-for-4, 2 RBI
Kevin Brunski (CF) 1-for-3, walk
Jose Andrade (1B) 1-for-4
Jake Lindeman (2B) 1-for-4, RBI
Ronnie Plesac (DH) 1-for-3
Aaron Orosz (RF) 0-for-2, sac bunt
Brett Bayer (SS) 1-for-3, run scored
Alex Doppler (C) 1-for-2, double, sac bunt
CJ Becerra (LF) 0-for-3

PENN (26-5)
Caleb Birkey (CF) 0-for-3
Tyler Thompson (DH) 0-for-3
Max Andressen (C) 0-for-1, 2 walks
Kyle Schneider (P) 0-for-3
Ryan Szklarek (RF) 0-for-3
Sam Sweden (SS) 0-for-3
Chad Gindleberger (LF) 0-for-3
Kyle Richard (1B) 0-for-1, 2 HBP, run scored
Alex Hostetler (2B) 2-for-2, sac bunt

Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
CROWN POINT (21-11)	0	1	1	1	0	0	1	4	8	2
ELKHART CENTRAL (23-6)	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	4	5

Saturday, 6-04-2011 - 80 degrees at LaPorte Regional Championship at LaPORTE, IN

WP - Ronnie Plesac (5-2)
SAVE - Nick Nauracy (CP) 0K, 0 walks
LP - Riley Futterknecht (4-4)

ELKHART CENTRAL (23-6)
Carmen Volheim - double, 2 RBIs
Pat Smith -double- run scored

CROWN POINT (21-11)
Jose Andrade (1B) Single, RBI
Brett Bayer (SS) Sac Fly, RBI
Aaron Orosz (LF) Walk, stolen base, run scored

LaPORTE REGIONAL
CROWN POINT 2, Penn 1
Elkhart Central 8, LAKE CENTRAL 3
CROWN POINT 4, Elkhart Central 2

PENDLETON HEIGHTS REGIONAL
(Allen County) Carroll 6, Huntington north 5
Richmond 12, (Lafayette) Jefferson 6
(Allen County) Carroll (29-2) vs. Richmond (13-13) championship*
*postponed to Monday night

LaPORTE, IN (06-04-2011) Let me repeat this. The way the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) state baseball tournament is set up, when it comes to pitching, you only need 2-1/2 men. Your No. 1 pitcher. A durable No.1 defensive catcher. And timely help half the time from your No. 2 pitcher.

Crown Point's No. 2 pitcher, Ronnie Plesac, who came through for the Bulldogs in the middle of a three-game sectional sweep, came through for them again in the LaPorte Regional championship game last Saturday night. And suddenly, after a decade of trying with state-rated teams, the Bulldogs appear to have a realistic chance to win the state championship with a team that's come from nowhere.

Plesac pitched six shutout innings while Crown Point (21-11) built a 4-0 lead on Elkhart Central Saturday night before Nick Nauracy, who dominated Penn (26-5) in the semifinals earlier in the day finished up, giving the Bulldogs their ninth regional baseball championship. Nauracy (and catcher Alex Doppler) led the 2-1 win over Penn. Pleasac, the 6-foot-5 sophomore left-hander, boosted CP to a 4-2 win over Elkhart Central.

The Bulldogs will now face upset king Richmond or Fort Wayne powerhouse Carroll (30-4) in Saturday's 4A Northern Semistate, probably in South Bend's Covaleski Stadium. Carroll and Richmond, like many of the state's games, were postponed by some hard line thunderstorms Saturday and rescheduled to meet in a rain-delayed regional final at Pendleton Heights high school late Monday night. A CP-Carroll matchup is far more likely than anything else.

A semistate win Saturday pushes the winner to the June 18 state championship game on Victory Field (6 p.m. Lake County time) in downtown Indianapolis, probably against 4A No. 2 Cathedral (27-2), the dominant team in the southern half of the 4A bracket.

The LaPorte regional saw Crown Point's rebuilt squad continue a late season surge. Since a double-header loss at Cathedral dropped CP to a 5-7 record on April 30, the Bulldogs are 16-4 including consecutive playoff wins over LaPorte (20-10), Valparaiso, Portage, Penn (26-5) and Elkhart Central (23-6), grabbing their fourth regional title in five years.

And look at the scores: 3-1, 3-0, 4-1, 2-1 and 4-2. Totally different from the barnstorming teams that averaged 10 runs a game on the way to regional titles in the last decade.

"The one thing about that is that its helped our toughness," said coach Steve Strayer, who, along with his staff, rebuilt this team after losing four players expected to be major contributors this season.

"We're not winning 12-1 and 10-3 and we're playing hard every game if we're in it. Every game's close and it's given us a sense of toughness for this tournament. Every game's been like this."

Every game has also seen contributions from 'rookies', players who were not on the varsity in 2010. CP's top two pitchers at the start of the season were Mike Manion and Brian Holloway, both academically ineligble now. Last year's catcher was Jose Andrade, who is now starring at first base. Nick Nauracy and Ronnie Plesac were not in the plans for 2011.
But the '2-1/2 men' playoff pitching plan has CP within seven good innings of the school's first state championship game in the 45-year history of the state tournament.

Against Penn, the Northern Indiana Conference (NIC) champion, sophomore third baseman Zach Plesac, Ronnie's twin brother, made two throwing errors but drove in two runs as the Bulldogs defeated a Kingsmen team that bombed them 11-3 three weeks ago.

"I just told him that if you make mistakes early, no one remembers it if you come back and get a big hit or make a big play late in the game," Strayer said. "He hit the ball hard today. I thought he came back and handled himself very well after those boneheaded errors."

CP took a 1-0 lead on Alex Doppler's double and Zach Plesac's one out ground ball to second base. Penn tied the game on a wild pitch in the bottom of the third, but Plesac's two-out single scored Brett Bayer in the top of the fifth.

Nauracy (9-2), who allowed two hits, walked two batters and hit two batters, has jumped all over the opportunity to be CP's No.1 pitcher. It is a virtual certainty he will start the semistate game and if CP reaches the state championship game, there's no doubt Nauracy will start that one as well.

The CP right-hander, who was not even in the CP program the last three years even though he was at CPHS, doesn't think he's going to give up many runs even though he has no past track record to fall back on.

"I don't know," he said of how he's so confident with no playoff experience. "I just want to go to the next level in baseball. I started out as nobody and now I'm trying to work my way up. Coming out here playing against the best, that's what I want to do."

"They have one power hitter (Max Andressen), so I kinda pitched around him. The rest of them I just said, 'You're going to have to put the ball in play.'"

Batters that have never seen Nauracy before (and that's everybody at this point) don't seem to know quite how to approach him and his array of pitches.

"It's a knuckle curve," Nauracy said. "I threw it maybe 80% of my pitches. The rest cutters and curveballs. You have to put it in play. It's a hard pitch to hit."

In the championship game CP led all there way after Brett Bayer's second-inning sacrifice fly and Jose Andrade's third-inning RBI single.

Ronnie Plesac, who has been extremely effective in the last month, is another surprise story. At the start of the season Strayer said that if the Bulldogs have to bring up their talented sophomore group from the junior varsity, that CP might be in trouble.

CP was in trouble pitching-wise until Plesac joined Nauracy as the 1-2 punch. Plesac shut out LaPorte 3-0 in May. He struck out 11 in a 3-0, eight inning sectional semifinal win over Chesterton two weeks ago and he pitched the first six shut out innings Saturday night before Nauracy finished up. When you only allow five runs in five games, it's hard to lose.

CP still is not a strong offensive team. LaPorte's Schreiber field was perfect for CP because of its large, 380 feet to center and 325 down the lines, dimensions. Ballparks like Plymouth's Bill Nixon Field (355 to center), home of the 3A regional are significantly smaller.

That's another reason CP wants to play at Covaleski Stadium where it's 405 feet to the wall in center.

"If we're going to win," Strayer said, after the Penn upset, "It's going to be 3-2, 2-1. We're not going to blow anybody out."

Blowing people out has proven to be overrated so far.

REGIONAL NOTES: Crown Point was lucky to play at all Saturday night. Nine of the 16 regional championship games were rained out Saturday night, including the Richmond-Carroll game that will provide an opponent for CP in the 4A Northern Semistate.

It is likely that Crown Point and Carroll would play in South Bend because both teams would have to travel similar distances to get to downtown South Bend. With Mishawaka Marian winning the 3A regional over Andrean, it is unlikely the 3A game would be in South Bend because that would be very much a home game for Marian.

The 'dream' scenario for South Lake County would be Crown Point (21-11) and Hanover Central (21-5) playing back-to-back in South Bend, both vying for a first-ever state finals berth.