SHELBY — Veteran Shelby baseball coach Jon Amicone hasn’t seen it as often as he would have liked during the 2026 season.
But on Thursday, April 30, he saw his Whippets play a brand of baseball that built Shelby into one of the most respected programs in Richland County and beyond. It came at the perfect time in a 7-1 Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference victory over country rival Ontario that completed the season sweep in the two-game series.
“That was indicative of what we want to be as a program and what we’ve been for more than a decade,” Amicone said. “That was Shelby baseball, and I am proud of my guys. It’s no secret that we haven’t been playing well this year, and this week was going to be a testament of who we are as baseball players and as a team. I am extremely proud of our effort.”
The Whippets did it by scoring runs in four of the seven innings, playing error-free defense and with dominant pitching from senior Kaleb Stairs, who allowed just one run and scattered six hits with five strikeouts and no walks in a complete game masterpiece.
“Stairs pounded the zone with an 80% first pitch strike clip, which is what we preach,” Amicone said. “Zero errors behind him. That is how we win games. Clean, throw strikes and have a productive lineup.”
Brady Bowman set the tone early for the Whippets when he was hit by a pitch on the first pitch of the game. He stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch before scoring on a Cole Dorsey squeeze bunt to give the Whippets the 1-0 lead just three batters into the game. It was an aggressive call by Amicone, but a necessary one in his mind.
“Our jobs are to score runs and to do that, we have to bunt 1-9 and be able to squeeze whenever we want,” Amicone said. “To score early in a rivalry game like this and get the lead early was important.”
Shelby’s biggest inning came during a three-run fifth when Quinton Albert started the inning off with a double before Stairs helped his own cause with a double of his own. Travis Slone singles Stairs in and Brock Fisher added a two-out single to score Slone to put the game out of reach at 7-0.
The cushion allowed Stairs to work comfortably on the mound.
“I focused on keeping my head clear, trusting the guys behind me and throwing strikes,” Stairs said. “I just wanted to make sure to attack and not mess around. Working the zone and hitting spots was a huge emphasis. Coach called great pitches.
“Our guys were great with the bats and what they were able to do early in the game took a lot of pressure off,” Stairs added. “I love having those guys behind me.”
Stairs worked quickly and efficiently. He needed just 82 pitches to toss a complete game and sent 57 into the catcher’s mitt for strikes and faced just 27 batters on the evening.
“We have a new system with the watches telling us what to throw, so I was ready to throw my next pitch by the time the ball got back to me,” Stairs said. “Working fast is what we have been taught and that’s what I wanted to do.”
Albert, Slone and Fisher led the Whippets with two hits apiece while Bowman and Stairs had one apiece. Albert, Dorsey, Stairs, Slone, Fisher and Casyn Koch had one RBI apiece.
Ontario (11-7) got two hits from Kane Cantrell including an RBI triple in the bottom of the seventh to avoid the shutout. Kasen Pittman, Jaren Holden, Max Ciroli and Brody Cheek had one hit apiece. But Stairs kept the Warriors off balance all game long.
“We swung at a lot of bad pitches early in the count and Stairs is a smart pitcher, when he saw us swinging at bad pitches, he continued to throw it there,” Ontario coach Bret Simmermacher said. “We just have to play smarter baseball. We haven’t done that our last two games. When we have conference championship aspirations, we can’t afford to drop games like this.”
The game was originally scheduled to be played at Ontario, but wet weather forced the game to be played at Shelby on the Whippets’ artificial turf field with Ontario being the home team. It seemed the Warriors were thrown off from the very beginning of the game.
“It did,” Simmermacher said. “It is hard, and I understand that, but you are still just playing baseball. You have no excuses. You give your best effort no matter what, and we didn’t do that the last two games. Hopefully this will turn us around because we have some tough games ahead.”
The Warriors have a two-game series with Highland before playing road games at Ashland and Tiffin Columbian to round out the week next week.
Shelby (7-8) has now won five of its last six games. They have Willard, Pleasant twice and Madison before the tournament draw on May 10.
“It is always good to win games,” Amicone said. “I have the utmost respect for Bret Simmermacher. He is a personal friend and a coach who I mimicked throughout my career the way he holds kids accountable and makes sure his teams compete. It is always tough to play them and we could see them again in the tournament. Records will never matter when it is Shelby-Ontario. We hope these two games kickstarts us for the rest of the season.”
jfurr@usatodayco.com
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Stairs tosses gem, Shelby sweeps Ontario in MOAC baseball rivalry series
Reporting by Jake Furr, Mansfield News Journal / Mansfield News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
