Jim Mashek

SPARTANS WILL FACE McCRACKEN COUNTY ON SUNDAY; SENIOR SS-RHP GRIFFIN RARDIN’s STATUS UNCERTAIN FOR GAME

LEXINGTON — South Warren High School’s baseball team has stared elimination in the face and lived to tell about it, twice in as many weeks.

The Spartans may need a real Houdini act to make it to the KHSAA State Tournament semifinals for the first time in school history.

Nine days after overcoming two 5-run deficits in the KHSAA 4th Region Tournament against Warren East, South Warren ran into one obstacle after another in its first-round state tourney game against Highlands at UK’s Kentucky Proud Park on Friday.

South Warren encountered multiple rain delays and quickly fell behind, 4-1, in the second inning against the Bluebirds. South’s starting pitcher, senior right-hander Austin Allen, got a quick pull after failing to retire any of the three batters he faced. Multi-purpose Spartans star Ethan Reynolds took the mound and got his team to the second inning, but South was treading water, and needed a boost FAST.

Enter Mikey Coradini.

Coradini, South Warren’s senior left-hander, had battled tendenitis in his throwing shoulder for about a month. He made a quick exit in the 4th Region championship game against Warren East. He underwent extrensive treatment for it and volunteered to Chris Gage, the Spartans’ longtime head coach, that he was ready to pitch.

Was he ever.

Coradini hurled 7 2/3 innings of masterful relief, guiding South Warren to a 6-5 victory over the Bluebirds in nine innings on Friday evening before a crowd of 1,252 at Kentucky Proud Park. The game ended after nightfall, and KHSAA officials quickly adjusted their schedule to move the Spartans’ quarterfinal game against McCracken County to Sunday afternoon.

The big question for that game, of course, is whether South Warren (31-8) will have the services of senior shortstop-pitcher Griffin Rardin, the KHSAA 4th Region Player of the Year. Rardin was involved in a home-plate collision that resulted is in his ejection in the sixth inning, and that penalty carries an automatic suspension to the next game.

Gage said South Warren would appeal that ruling, but that appears to be a long shot at best.

A source at the stadium said, “As of right now, (the appeal) has no chance.”

It’ll create another balancing act for Gage and his resourceful Spartans squad. Senior outfielder/pitcher Ethan Reynolds, a WKU signee, missed the bulk of the season after undergoing hand surgery. Junior Perkins, South’s talented freshman outfielder, is out after undergoing emergency appendectomy surgery about one week ago. And now Griffin Rardin, the younger son of WKU coach Marc Rardin and his wife, Dawn, is looking at a premature conclusion to an outstanding high school career.

“Griffin’s the best player in the state of Kentucky,” Gage said.

Gage said home-plate umpire Alan Hale’s ejection ruling was based on Griffin Rardin making “malicious contact” with Highlands catcher Kai Anderson in the sixth-inning collision at the plate. Rardin was trying to score on Ethan Reynolds’ one-out ground ball, which would have extended the Spartans’ lead to two runs.

Didn’t happen.

Coradini didn’t hesitate in taking the ball back from Gage, for the seventh inning, and then the eighth, and the ninth. He was quite efficient, needing 95 pitches for his 7 2/3 innings on the mound. The senior left-hander scattered six hits while striking out three batters. He gave up one earned run, on Brooks Hendrix’s towering home run to lead off the seventh, a shot that sailed over KPP’s left-field fence.

Coradini avoided further damage and battled out of another jam in the top of the eighth. He earned his 10th victory of the season, against a single defeat, while carving his name into Spartans baseball lore.

“Season’s on the line, we couldn’t afford a loss there,” Coradini said. “I knew everyone neeeded me. I trusted everyone around me — offense, defense, the coaches — so that’s what really got us going.”

One day later, it might h a different story.

“I feel sore all over,” Coradini said via text message.

The Spartans erased their early three-run deficit with two runs in the bottom of the fourth, followed by a single run in the fifth. Sophomore outfielder Justin Capps drove in a run on a bases-loaded hit by pitch, one of FIVE PLUNKINGS from the Highlands’ pitching staff for the game. Griffin Rardin drove in the other run on a line-drive single to left field with two outs, scoring Spartans DH Casey Green.

In the fourth, Green led off with a bloop double to shallow right-center field. Nolan Schwalback, the Bluebirds’ center fielder, was playing unusually shallow for the entire game, and Joseph Fentress, the Spartans’ sophomore catcher, took notice.

Fentress ripped a pitch from Bluebirds right-hander Garrett Wiggins over Schwalback’s head, with the RBI double tying the game at 4. South Warren took the lead, 5-4, on Griffin Rardin’s RBI triple, also over Schwalback’s head. Rardin would be ejected from the game, moments later, and was clearly disappointed with the decision.

South Warren coach Chris Gage came to his defense, multiple times, after the game.

“The catcher (Kai Anderson) didn’t have the ball, and he was blocking the plate,” Gage said. “Then they throw out the best player in the state of Kentucky, by far, in my opinion … I don’t know what he was supposed to do (differently).”

South Warren left the bases loaded, in the bottom of the eighth, and then rallied again, in the ninth, against Highlands reliever Adam Forton. South’s Jaxen Decker led off the ninth with a line-drive double to the left-field corner, and Casey Green followed with a single up the middle.

Forton retired the Spartans’ Joseph Fentress, on a fly ball to shallow center field caught by Bluebirds shortstop Finn Boldin, but South Warren’s Gray Pearson was waiting at the on-deck circle.

And Pearson pounced on a pitch that he liked, sending it to medium depth in left-center field. Nolan Schwalback’s throw for the plate was about halfway up the third-base line, and the Spartans poured out of their dugout to embrace Pearson after his game-winning sacrifice fly.

“Just because we’re down, doesn’t mean we’re out,” Pearson said when it was over. “Just trying to do whatever the team needs. In my mind, I wasn’t thinking about hitting it off the wall, or anything like that. I just wanted to do whatever need to be done, to win the game.”

The Spartans practiced on Saturday afternoon at Dunbar High School in Lexington. South coach Chris Gage has limited arms to work with, for Sunday’s game against McCracken County, but it could be Austin Allen, who pitched only briefly as the Spartans’ starter on Friday.

“We’ve used a lot of pitchers, so we’ll see,” Gage said. “And with these kids, it’s just one hurdle after another. We’ll see what we can come up with.”