14TH DISTRICT TITLE GAME SET FOR 6 P.M. TUESDAY
Bowling Green right-hander Dawson Hall completed the task at hand, inducing a ground ball from South Warren’s Cole House to end the fifth inning and send the No. 1 seeded Purples to a resounding 16-2 victory over the Spartans on Monday evening in the KHSAA 14th District Tournament semifinals.
Three hours later, it was Warren East’s Chase Carver, retiring the side in order in the seventh, as the Raiders turned back Greenwood 5-2 in the second 14th Tournament semifinal.
That sets up Tuesday evening’s championship game, between the district’s top two seeds, both of which have qualified for the KHSAA’s 4th Regional Tournament.
“We’ve got another week to play, maybe more,” Warren East coach Wes Sanford said in the Raiders’ dugout when it was over.
BGHS coach Nate Isenberg was equally upbeat.
“I thought Dawson Hall pitched really well,” Isenberg said. “He’s got a nice arm, you can see what Western (Kentucky) sees in him. We played good defense behind him. Did the little things, offensively. Baseball can be difficult, when you struggle with the fundamentals.
“We’re looking forward to (Tuesday’s championship game).”
BOWLING GREEN 16, SOUTH WARREN 2
Bowling Green, the Commonwealth’s fifth-ranked team, played poorly in Saturday’s 11-1 loss to Henderson County, where Isenberg once coached before making the move to BGHS.
Bowling Green quickly put that disappointment in the rear-view mirror.
The Purples (24-8) showed patience at the plate, against five different South Warren pitchers, in coasting to the lopsided victory over the Spartans.
South Warren, which finishes the season 18-15, fell behind quickly and fell apart in the bottom of the third inning. The Purples sent 16 batters to the plate, scoring 10 runs to build a 15-1 lead. At that point, the Spartans were helplessly behind, and Bowling Green was on its way to the championship game.
Hall improved to 7-2 on the season, scattering seven hits while striking out three batters. South’s Dalton Sisson, who was pulled in the Spartans’ disastrous first inning, took the loss to finish 4-2 on the season.
South Warren pitchers struggled with their control, with four hit batsmen and three walks. The Spartans also committed four errors, something to which South coach Chris Gage alluded when it was finally over.
“We’ve got to get tougher, mentally,” Gage said. “Defensively, we played poorly. That’s something we’ve got to fix. We had way too many mental errors.”
The Purples were quick to capitalize on them.
“We’re hitting the ball pretty consistently,” BGHS outfielder/pitcher Dillon Maners said. “Up and down the lineup. They gave us a couple extra outs in the first inning, and we were able to take advantage of it.
“Put the ball in play, capitalize on the opponents’ mistakes. Gritty, not pretty.”
Junior catcher/DH Dom Davis, returning from an elbow injury that sidelined him for more than a month, led the Purples with a 2-for-4 game with three RBI. Maners and senior third baseman Blake Ginter had two hits each, and senior center fielder Turner Nottmeier delivered a key hit, a shot that bounced off the mound and into shallow right-center field for a two-run single.
FROM THE PURPLES’ DUGOUT.
“We really didn’t know who they were going to throw, before the game,” Nottmeier said. “Coach Isenberg told us to sit in the back of the batter’s box and wait for your pitch.
“Our goal is to win a state championship, but we have to take it game by game.”
BGHS catcher Spencer Newman, a quarterback/cornerback for the Purples’ football team, had a premonition that Dawson Hall was going to be on top of his game.
“Dawson knew he had to work both sides of the plate, stay ahead in the count,” Newman said. “We took some cuts in the field house, before coming over to the park, and we were ready to go.”
Kobe Martin, the Spartans’ leadoff man, admitted South Warren struggled with the fundamentals. Martin, a senior, was the leading rusher on South’s football squad that claimed the KHSAA Class 5A state championship.
“When (Bowling Green) needs to score, they score,” Martin said. “We knew we had to play almost perfect to beat a team of that caliber. The errors, they killed us.”
Martin, South catcher Trevor McNaughton and Spartans first baseman Riley Saxton all finished with two hits.
Dillon Maners, the Purples’ tough-minded, junior left-hander, is expected to get the call as Bowling Green’s starting pitcher in Tuesday’s championship game. Isenberg, however, wasn’t ready to show his hand, saying his decision might come down to whether the Purples would be tangling with Warren East or Greenwood.
Maners is 5-1 on the season with an impressive 1.96 ERA.
“We have three, four pitchers to look at,” Isenberg said with a sly grin. “We’ll figure it out tonight. We’ll have options.”
WARREN EAST 5, GREENWOOD 2
Chase Carver made his seventh start of the season a memorable one, hurling a four-hitter while striking out nine Greenwood batters. Wes Sanford, the Raiders’ coach, was ready to move junior right-hander Drake Young from third base to the pitchers’ mound for the seventh inning, but Carver and East catcher Wyatt Nesbitt talked him out of it.
Greenwood’s James Russell unloaded a towering, two-run home run, his second of the season, to left-center field in the top of the sixth inning. Carver, who earned his sixth victory of the season against two defeats, retired the next five batters he faced.
“Drake was loose, he was ready to go,” Sanford said. “But Chase looked strong, even at the end. If they got a base runner on, we were gonna go to the bullpen. Chase had a great night.”
EAST TEAMMATES WYATT NESBITT (LEFT) AND TRAY PRICE.
Nesbitt sensed his teammate was ready before Carver even took the pitcher’s mound.
“Chase was ready. He was prepared,” Nesbitt said. “You could kind of sense, before the game, that it was going to be a low-scoring game.”
Tray Price, the Raiders’ gifted three-sport athlete, unloaded a leadoff home run to left-center field in the bottom of the third inning, giving Warren East a 2-0 lead.
“I was expecting a breaking ball (from Greenwood starter Blake Marks) and I kept my weight on my back foot,” Price said. “It was great, seeing it go over the fence. I hit it pretty good.”
Greenwood coach Jason Jaggers pulled Marks for reliever Bryson Brockman in the bottom of the fifth, after East’s Braylen Lee delivered a two-run single down the left-field line. Marks, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, took the loss to finish the season with a 4-2 record.
Senior right-hander Austin Comer is expected to be the Raiders’ starting pitcher in Tuesday’s championship game. Comer has compiled a 4-1 record with a 2.94 ERA.
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