Edgewood baseball coach Austin Hatfield believes his team is at its best under pressure.
“When adversity hits, we don’t roll over,” Hatfield said.
The Cougars defeated second-seeded Anderson 5-2 in extra innings to move to the OHSAA Division II district championship game for the first time since 2005.
Edgewood (21-7) will play the Troy Trojans (17-9) tomorrow evening at Clinton Massie High School. The district championship is slated for 5 p.m.
Both teams were strong on the mound as junior righty Carson Downie took the hill for Edgewood, and for the Raptors it was senior left-hander Mason Glen.
Hatfield gives credit to Anderson offense, and especially senior first baseman Eric Fleetwood
“That’s a very good hitting team, they only had six hits,” Hatfield said. “Fleetwood is one of the best hitters in Ohio, we intentionally walked him, and he had two hits, and the sky high one at the end.”
Edgewood offense was led by sophomore outfielder Carter Breedlove, who recorded the go-ahead RBI in the ninth inning for the Cougars.
“I’m on deck, our pitching coach came up to me, and told me to be you,” Breedlove said. “I got in that box, I was like this is it, this is what I’ve been born to do, play baseball, I love this game with everything I got.
“It was kinda middle out, I was trying to poke it to right center, just got a lot of the barrel and put it through the gap.”
In the bottom of the eighth inning Hatfield took a chance to load the bases with one out and it worked, forcing a tag play as Carson Glen hit a ground ball to senior shortstop HaydonSimonds and he fired home to freshman catcher Ty Cowman to lay down the tag on the Raptor pinch runner Connor Mullett.
“We didn’t want to have a squeeze, didn’t want to leave it up to anything at the plate there on a tag, thought we walked those two guys, to force a lefty-lefty matchup, for a chance for a ground ball double play,” Hatfield said. “It’s definitely risky but when you have JJ Vogel on the mound, you just trust your guy.”
Sophomore pitcher JJ Vogel trusted his defense in that situation.
“I knew my guys would step up, defense has been fantastic all year,” Vogel said. “Just stepped up at the right time, our catcher (Ty Cowman) made a great play,”
The Cougars have won 12 in a row, and 15 out of the last 17. Vogel believes this team can keep this streak going.
“We have a very special team, everyone is starting to come together at the same time,” Vogel said. “I think that’s what letting us get these wins here.”
