Hanover Central holds on to beat No. 2 Taylor 4-3, advances to 2A State Baseball Finals

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith

6-13-2011

45th Indiana State Baseball Finals

Victory Field, 501 W. Maryland Street, Indianapolis June 17-18, 2011.
Admission: $9 each day.
Home Team: The winner of the northern semi-state (second team listed below) is the designated home team in each game.

Friday, June 17
Class A | #2 North Central (25-5) vs. #3 Lafayette Catholic (25-9) | 6:30 pm CST.

Saturday, June 18
Class 2A | #11 South Spencer (23-6) vs. HANOVER CENTRAL (22-5) | 12 noon
WIMS (1420) AM
Class 3A | #5 Crawfordsville (28-6) vs. (Mishawaka) Marian (26-7) | 3 pm (CST)
Class 4A | #1 Indianapolis Cathedral (28-2) vs. #2 (Fort Wayne) Carroll (31-2) | 6 pm (CST)
ComCast Channel 17 - "Live"

Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
Taylor (27-5)	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	3	6	0
HANOVER CENTRAL (22-5)	0	1	3	0	0	0	-	4	3	4

Saturday, June 11, 2011 - 70-degrees, 2A Northern Semistate at Highland Park in KOKOMO, IN

WP - Andy Wellwerts (9-0) CG, 10K, 1 walk
LP - Matt Brankle (6-2) 2K, 6 walks (2 2/3 inn.)

TAYLOR (27-5)
Logan Barnes (SS) 2-for-4, RBI
Shane Arnold (OF) 1-for-3
Spencern McQueary (OF) 2-for-4
Tyler Simmons (DH) 0-for-3
Matt Branke (P) 0-for-3, RBI
Korey Sexton (OF) 0-for-4
Trevor Marler (2B) 0-for-3
Ryan Goudy (3B) 0-for-2
Allen Stout (1B) 0-for-3

HANOVER CENTRAL (22-5)
Zac Maciejewski (C) 0-for-3
Nic Sampognaro (2B) 0-for-3
Danny Stum (LF) 0-for-2

Nick Bollenbacher (SS) 0-for-3
Mike Balich (C) 0-for-2
Tyler Trepton (1B) 1-for-2

Nick Laing (LF) 1-for-2
Nick Spangler (RF) 0-for-2, RBI
Nick Myszkowski (CF) 1-for-1 walk

KOKOMO, IN (6-11-2011) It renews you faith in sports. The idea that an unranked team that had never been beyond the sectional can play the state's second-ranked team on its hometown field, commit four errors and still win the biggest game in the history of the program.

It's a once in a lifetime event. At least until next Saturday.

That's when Hanover Central, which had never won so many as two post season games in the same year until this season, takes the field for the Class 2A state championship game against South Spencer (23-6).

Hanover Central's 4-3 win over second-ranked Taylor (27-5) in front of a crowd of about 500 largely Titan followers at Kokomo's old school Highland Park is a landmark in the history of the Cedar Lake high school.

The Wildcats (22-5) are not just the first baseball team from HC to reach a state title game, they are the first boys team of any kind to reach the final game. When Hanover faces South Spencer, a 7-0 winner over Park Tudor in the Southern Semistate title game Saturday, they will attempt to become the first team from the Porter County Conference to win a state title of any kind.

"I had dreams of this," said basketball star Nick Bollenbacher. "But I never though it would happen. Here we are in baseball."

It was a dramatic game that was in doubt until the final inning when winning pitcher Andy Wellwerts struck out seniors Matt Brankle and Korey Sexton with the tying run at second base.

Taylor may have made an error starting Brankle, who walked six in 2-2/3 innings, including four in a row with two out in the second inning to tie the game 1-1. The senior right-hander walked two of the first four batters in the third inning and then gave up a two-run double to the right field wall by HC junior Tyler Trepton, giving Hanover a 3-1 lead. Taylor's Logan Barnes then threw Nick Laing's ground ball past first base, scoring Trepton for a 4-1 Hanover lead.

Junior Cameron Clark came in to pitch at that point and Hanover did not score again. Taylor head coach Brett Owens may have made a mistake in his choice of starting pitchers. Clark had pitched a complete-game, three-hit 1-0 shutout over Wabash in the semistate championship game five days earlier (with eight strikeouts and two walks) and he shut out Hanover over the final four innings in relief Saturday.

HC coach Doug Nelson wasn't going to change pitchers under any circumstances.

Wellwerts, who had completed all eight of his starts this season, gave up three infield singles to the first three Taylor batters.

"They had those bunts that got them going. The fans were going crazy," said Bollenbacher. "As soon as we calmed down, we just got better."

"No matter what it is, on and off the field, I feel like I can trust Andy," he said. "He's a friend and you can always count on him. I'm sitting at shortstop saying, Wow, this may be a long inning. But we got through it and that gave us a big push when we got three runs in the third inning."

Trepton, whose two-run double was the only extra base hit of the game, admitted, "they (Taylor) had a lot of people here in the stands but that pitcher was rattled after he gave up those four walks. Next inning, we just went after him."

Trepton, who will probably be Hanover's No. 1 pitcher in 2012, when Wellwerts (9-0) and Nic Sampognaro (7-0) graduate, didn't know what to expect from Brankle. But he guessed correctly.

"When he was warming up," Tyler said. I'm over here timing myself and looking to see if I'm taking the right cuts. So when I get up there, I have a good idea. I hit the fastball on the 3-2 count. I knew it was coming."

"This was phenomenal. I don't know what to say about it. We've worked our butt off all season and all winter for this moment."

Wellwerts, who now has 120 strikeouts in 67 innings, rescued his defense. The Porter County Conference (PCC) MVP struck out 11, giving up just one walk, an intentional walk to Taylor home run hitter Tyler Simmons (.516, 10 HRs, 53 RBIs) in the fifth inning. Taylor scored on two Hanover errors in the fourth inning, but Wellwerts struck out Allen Stout to end the inning.

In the fifth, with the bases loaded, Taylor scored on an RBI single by Logan Barnes, but Wellwerts struck out Shane Arnold to keep the score 4-3.

"We tried to give the game away with errors," Nelson said. "But we got all our hits in the same inning and we held on. I'm still in shock. At the end, I thought Andy was trying to be cute. I'm telling him, 'Would you knock it off and throw fats balls? Throw chest high fastballs.' They're not going to hit that in that situation."

Nelson was impressed with how his boys held on in the final two innings, playing at Highland Park, which has an almost gladiator-style high rising grandstand that has fans looking down at a sharp angle on the playing field. In this case, mostly Kokomo area fans.

"They had a ton of fans here," Nelson said. "Their side was full. This is as tough a situation as we'll face. They got three guys on with swinging bunts. I told the guys that they only got one run. That's a moral victory."

Nelson did go to the mound for a team meeting after three consecutive bunt hits.

"I'm paraphrasing here," he said. "But we politely reviewed our bunt coverage. Other than that we were okay. Laing made a great catch and Andy stepped up, which he has done all year."

"I didn't have a lot to do with this," he said. "The boys just played ball."

Now Hanover Central, a school with only 11 winning seasons in their entire baseball history, runs out on Victory Field (they will be the home team) Saturday as the Class 2A Northern representative, something that is still a little hard to imagine.

"I've watched games there," Trepton said. "I've never played there. I'm really looking forward to this."

SEMISTATE NOTES: Assistant coach Ron Szayni, who was Hanover's head coach from 1998-2005, has as much invested in this playoff run as anybody.

"The kids just jelled as a team," he said. "It's great. It's indescribable. Even last year there were pockets of 'us' and 'them' on the team. This year they've come together. For years, we had the Cedar Lake-St. John divide. Andy held it together. After every inning, I was trying to talk to him, telling him to hold it together. When we eliminate the mistakes, we're a pretty good team."

Szayni is HC's connection to the past and he's going to hear from some past players this week.

"Roger and Ryan Niemeyer were here today. Larry Pempek is playing with the Windy City Thunderbolts (an independent team in suburban Chicago), but I see him a lot. He's always texting me asking how we're doing. He's been to some practices helping us out. I'm sure I'll hear from more of them now that we're in the finals."

If you have never heard of South Spencer high school there's a reason for that. Spencer County borders Kentucky at the bottom of the state, over 200 miles from Northwest Indiana. Folks there probably haven't heard of Hanover Central, either. On the map, South Spencer is the southernmost school in the state and it's actually closer to Memphis, Tennessee than it is to Cedar Lake.

But this is a baseball hotbed. South Spencer high is located in Rockport, which is home of Rockport Post 254, a three-time American Legion state champion and hosts of the 2011 American Legion state finals. They will bring a large crowd to Indianapolis for the championship game, which is set for 12 noon Indy-time Saturday.

Estimates had 10 Taylor fans (or at least fans from Kokomo) in the high-rising stands at Highland Park for every one Hanover fan. Taylor is basically suburban Kokomo and Taylor manager Brent Owens is a former American Legion Post 6 player who has played dozens of games at Highland Park

"I don't remember a crowd like this since probably the '85 American Legion World Series," he told the Kokomo Tribune. "It was a great crowd. It wasn't just the Taylor people, I feel like Howard County was behind us. We appreciate it so much."

It will be very interesting to see how many fans Hanover has at the state finals this weekend. Hanover Central is often forgotten as a Northwest Indiana school. Announcements of coaching changes in the local daily newspapers are somewhat inconsistent.

There was no mention when Dave Seils was named athletic director and Doug Nelson's acceptance of the baseball coaching job two years ago also went without notice. Lake County solidarity traditionally has not included Hanover, possibly because they play in the Porter County Conference.

Hanover attendance at the regional and semistate has been slim, but that's to be expected. It was 100 miles to the Jimtown Regional and almost three hours to the Kokomo Regional. It's actually easier to get to downtown Indianapolis than it is to get to either Jimtown or Kokomo.

But it's time to call out Hanover fans because Rockport (South Spencer) is a small country town where baseball is big. South Spencer has seven regional championships and the Rebels were the 2007 Class 2A state champions.

South Spencer turned three double plays in a 7-0 win over No. 1 Park Tudor last Saturday. Jordan Reece (9-0) pitched that game plus a 15-5 regional championship win on June 6.
South Spencer was batting .396 as a team before last Saturday's game. South Spencer beat Linton-Stockton 31-10 in a sectional game, which may say more about Linton-Stockton than it does about South Spencer.