45th
Indiana State Baseball Tournament
Class 2A
6-11-11 (Sat) No. 5 Park Tudor (27-5) vs. No. 11 South Spencer (24-5)
at Jasper - 3 p.m. (EDT)
6-11-11 (Sat) Hanover Central (21-5) vs. No. 2 Taylor (27-4) 5 p.m.
5 p.m. (Lake County time) at Kokomo's Highland Park
KOKOMO, IN (6-11-2011) So
it come to this. If Hanover Central is to reach the Class 2A state championship
after 40 years of trying, they will have to do it against one of the state's
small school superpowers. Probably fueled by Kokomo's strong youth baseball
system, the Taylor Titans want to reach the state championship for the first
time since 2000, when they defeated Boone Grove and won the state championship.
At this point, every school has a
big star and for the Titans, it's senior Tyler Simmons who, after 30 games was
batting .524 with nine home runs and 48 RBIs.
Teammate Spencer McQueary has odd
numbers, a .342 batting average with nine home runs but only 19 RBIs. That
indicates he must bat first or second in the order.
Taylor averages eight runs a game,
but they barely topped Northfield 1-0 in the Wabash Regional championship game
last Monday. Cameron Clark (9-1, 1.50 ERA), Matt Brankle (6-1, 4.20 ERA) and
Simmons (5-2, 3,03 ERA) lead the pitchers.
Hanover is well-armed with Andy
Wellwerts (9-0, 123 strikeouts in 70 innings) and Nic Sampognaro (7-0), who both
won in the Jimtown Regional. But it will be Wellwerts the rest of the way. The
senior struck out 13 in 10 innings last week against Westview and barring
illness or injury he'll go all the way this Saturday. No one has hit him hard
all season, but he'll face the ultimate test against a lineup like Taylor's that
bats .340 as a team.
Hanover is sparked by junior
leadoff man Zac Maciejweski (.458, 36 runs scored, 10 stolen bases) and junior
No.3 hitter Nick Bollenbacher (.434, 4 homers, 24 RBIs) but there is significant
drama here. Hanover has already been informed that they will move from Class 2A
to Class 3A in 2012 and that they will be in 3A Sectional 18 with Andrean, a
three-time state baseball champion and a team that has won 10 consecutive
sectionals.
This may be Hanover's first and
final chance to reach the state finals for some time. Also, the IHSAA basically
put Taylor at home for this game. I don't know the exact geography, but Taylor
has a Kokomo mailing address. The Titans certainly have played in Kokomo's
Highland Park, an old 5,000-seat minor league baseball field. Hanover must
travel 140 miles, while Taylor travels about five miles.
But so be it. To me, if you are going to reach the state finals, you don't want
a soft opponent or a home game. It's no good if you don't earn it. To say that
the semistate game is emotional is redundant. It is far more pressurized than
the state title game is because there's truly no loser in the finals. Make no
mistake. No matter what is said, if you lose the semistate game, there is a big
sense of failure. Much more so than any other game at any other level of the
state tournament.
Add to that the fact that Hanover is the ultimate underdog. They have had just
11 winning season in the 43 years of HC baseball. Four years ago, Cedar Lake
didn't even field a 12-and-under Little League team because there weren't enough
players. For years, Hanover regularly practiced on the asphalt parking lot
because their field flooded after any rain.
In the previous decade, Hanover
didn't have a baseball field for two years because the present day HC fieldhouse
was constructed on the baseball diamond.
No program in any Northwest Indiana sport has come further than HC baseball. But
the 'window of opportunity' is slamming shut after this season. It's now or
(maybe) never.
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Revised: June 11, 2011.
