Kentucky ace derails Holmes County’s bid to repeat as Central Regional champs
For the Holmes County Ohio Hawks, that adage rings all too true. Ohio dropped a 7-1 game in the semifinal of the Central Regional Senior Little League tournament in Peru, Ill., stymied by Evan Whitaker, a big 6-foot-3 right-hander who handcuffed the Hawks, scattering seven hits and walking just one in his 97 pitch complete game victory.
Whitaker’s effort put an end to the Hawks’ quest to repeat as Central Regional champs and put to bed their effort to return to the World Series in Bangor, Maine.
“We ran into a pitcher who threw a lot of off-speed stuff for strikes, and he threw pitches where he wanted them and made us hit his pitches. He stayed ahead in the count all night long. He pitched a tremendous game.”
For awhile, Kentucky and Ohio locked horns in a great pitchers duel between Whitaker and Ohio’s Sheldon Mullet. Through three innings, Mullet faced just one hitter over the minimum, while Whitaker faced just two more than perfection, as the two hurlers hooked up in a three-inning stint that didn’t take long to get through.
It wasn’t until the fourth that Kentucky would break through for a run, not that they didn’t try earlier. In the first, Mullet picked up a squib hit in front of the mound, dove and made a perfect toss to Blake Bunch at the plate to nail Austin Johnson, who had been hit by a pitch, trying to score from third.
In the fourth, Johnson again was hit by a pitch, and scored on a Eric Hubbard double. Whitaker then grounded to the hole at short, but Kevin Schrock gobbled it up and threw to Todd Ropp in time to nail Hubbard, who was trying to advance. Chuckie Sandlin then smacked a ball that was destined for right-field, until it hit Hubbard for the second out. Mullet got a pop-out to escape more trouble.
The Hawks answered in the bottom of the fourth when Schrock smoked a triple to right, then one out later scored on a Mullet line-drive single to left.
Kentucky answered, plating three in the fifth, which began with an error on a bunt by Mullet and a seeing eye single. Whitaker later delivered a huge two-run double to make it 4-1, but the Hawks again avoided a bigger inning when Jake Roll was thrown out at home by Ropp.
Meanwhile, Whitaker rolled along, sitting down the Hawks in order in the fifth and sixth. Kentucky added one in the sixth and two more in the seventh, one courtesy of a long blast off the bat of Whitaker, who drove a 2-2 fastball from Kendall Borntrager over the center-field wall.
The Hawks battled to the end, loading the bases on a Mullet double, a Bunch walk and Alec Mast’s pinch hit infield single, but Whitaker, as he had done all day, settled in and got the final two outs to end it.
“Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want them to, but I am proud of weren’t sure that we were even going to get out of State,” said Yoder. “When we came out here, we knew this was not going to be a cake walk, and any of the four teams in the final four could have won this thing. I feel hugely disappointed for the kids because they really felt that they were more than capable of winning it all, but I don’t think they or anyone else realizes just how hard it is to repeat. It’s harder than what people think. You have to catch a lot of breaks along the way.
“But even with the way things ended, I love these kids and the way they performed here and competed was excellent. They did the very best they could and we just fell a little short.”
*****
The two-seed Ohio team wasn’t the only team shocked in the semifinals. Top seeded Peru, Ill. was unceremoniously bounced from the tournament, falling to a Michigan team it had defeated earlier 6-0 by a whopping 18-7 score.
For more photos from all of the games at Central Regional action in Peru, log on to our website at: http://www.HolmesBargain Hunter.com.
Published: August 10, 2011
