AKRON - The Wawasee High School baseball team put an end to Whitko's undefeated season earlier this year. At Class 3A Sectional 21 Friday, Wawasee put an end to the Whitko Wildcats' season all together.
Having already defeated Whitko 16-3 back on April 13, many may have thought Wawasee wouldcruise again. Instead, Wawasee actually needed nine innings and a walk-off home run by junior Josh Dingeldein to advance to Monday's semifinals with a 6-5 win."I expected anything to happen in the tournament," Wawasee coach John Blunk said. "Just like Warsaw beat Northridge and Concord beat Goshen. You expect the unexpected. You have to play like there's no tomorrow."
Before advancing to the semifinals, Wawasee (9-14) first had to shake the pesky Wildcats (7-22).
After breaking a 2-2 tie with three runs in the bottom of the sixth, Wawasee looked in total control.
However, Wawasee senior pitcher Phil Fleagle began the top of the seventh by hitting Whitko sophomore Colin Nicodemus and senior Tyler Linn on back-to-back pitches.
With senior reliever Jake Sommers on the mound, Wawasee recorded an out before junior Nathan Sherrard reached on an error, loading the bases.
In the tough situation, Sommers coaxed another flyout, bringing senior Trevor Sleighter to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs.
"He's been our guy all year, and I was very confident in him," Whitko coach Erik Hisner said about Sleighter. "I told him, 'Hey, you're the guy we want at the plate.' He came through with the hit."
The hit split the left and centerfielders, driving in all three runs, forcing extra innings.
"He is a legitimate good player," Blunk said of Sleighter, who finished the game going 2 for 4 with three RBIs and two doubles. "He can hit the ball. Hindsight, I should have walked him and gave them a run. If I had it to do again, he wouldn't have swung the bat. That's how good I think he is."
Two innings later, it was Hisner who may have wanted a second chance with a batter.
With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Dingeldein ripped a shot to right-center field that senior pitcher Kurt Boggs didn't even have to look at to know it was gone.
"I hit it right on the sweet spot and it felt like a great hit, but I was going to run hard and not take my chances," Dingeldein said.
Dingeldein had already shown his power with a double earlier in the game, but his coach wasn't sure how far his second hit was going to go until it cleared the fence.
"I didn't think anything had a chance to get out tonight with the way the wind was blowing in," Blunk said. "The only place the ball goes out here is to dead center. He hit it to the right spot."
While the walkoff was dramatic, the game didn't really need to be that close as Wawasee left 11 runners on base, eight in scoring position.
Three of those runners were stranded in the first, when it looked as if Wawasee was going to blow it open early.
Following a hardly-hit lineout, Wawasee's Cody Blunk, Sommers and Si Shear all reached on singles, with Sommers' hit driving in Blunk. After Keegan Beer reached on an error, Whitko
freshman pitcher Alex Stoddard faced a bases-loaded, one-out situation.
In dire straits, Stoddard got out of the inning when a groundball was thrown to home plate and the next Warrior grounded out as well.
"For him to battle was huge," Hisner said about Stoddard. "We didn't really help him out on defense, making an error in left field and an error at third. But he was able to minimize the damage and keep us in it."
And for a team that began the season at 6-0, then went 1-22 the rest of the way, giving up could have been easy, but it didn't happen.
"I'm real proud of my guys," Hisner said. "They never gave up. I thought we made some big plays to continue the game."
WAWASEE 6, WHITKO 5 (9 innings)
(Class 3A, Sectional 21, 1st Rd)
Wh 000 110 300 - 5 6 3
Wa 100 103 001 - 6 14 1
Phil Fleagle (ND, 6IP, 4R, 4ER, 5H, 8K, 1BB, 3HB), Jake Sommers (7, W, 3IP, 1R, 0ER, 1H, 2K) and Si Shear; Alex Stoddard (ND, 6IP, 5R, 5ER, 11H, 1K, 2BB), Kurt Boggs (7, L, 2-1/3IP, 1R, 1ER, 3H, 1K, 1BB) and Boggs, Riley Cokl (7)
