GRANVILLE — Highland faced the No. 1 baseball team in Ohio’s Division IV, but the Scots didn’t let it get to them.
As senior teammate Zach Church said, Jonathan Alder’s players “wake up the same and brush their teeth the same. They’re high school kids.”
Unintimidated, the fourth-seeded Scots pulled off the upset, beating JA 4-3 in eight innings to win the Division IV district championship Friday, May 29 at Denison University.
Unranked Highland (21-9) moves on to the regional at Bowling Green State University Tuesday, June 2 at 2 p.m. against 17th ranked Milbury Lake.
“Coach (Garrett) Ulrey gave us a really good speech about how they are just other high school kids,” Highland senior Jayden Collins said. “They are the same as us no matter where they are going next year or the year after that. They are still in high school right now. That really helped us through that.”
The Pioneers (25-4) struck first in the first inning, but Highland answered in the top of the second when Branson Newsome singled and later scored on a Lincoln Shaffer hit. Both teams scored a run in the fourth inning with Rhett Russell singling home Caleb Youngman who singled to get on earlier.
It remained 2-2 until the Scots rallied in the top of the eighth inning. There were back-to-back walks followed by a bunt single to load the bases. JA brought in its third pitcher of the day, and Youngman broke the tie with a fielder’s choice that scored Morgan Kline. A two-out walk from Collins with the bases still loaded made it 4-2.
JA got a run in the bottom of the eighth but Cade Minnick, who pitched in relief from the sixth inning, got out of the jam and put the Scots into the Sweet 16.
“I think we were confident coming into it,” Highland head coach Donnie Kline said. “I was actually surprised at how poorly we small-balled today. When you play the No. 1 team in the state, you have to play pretty good baseball. There were a lot of times today when we did not. We were outplayed by Alder and outcoached by Alder, but the difference was our guys hung around. When you hang around in an eight-inning game like this, anything can happen.”
Church agreed with his coach’s assessment.
“There was tons of respect throughout the whole game, but we knew we had to play our best game, which we really didn’t,” he said. “We had plenty of mistakes, but we did just enough to come out on top.”
Collins, who was unable to pitch for much of the regular season due to injury, started and worked five innings. He struck out six, gave up three hits and walked two. Minnick allowed two hits and two walks with two strikeouts in three innings. Highland finished with six hits.
“Both arms on the mound did really well,” Collins said. “It’s mental toughness across the board, and it’s working as one as a group that really helped us today. All of our minds are on the same page of winning that game and beating the No. 1 team in the state. We did that. We executed.”
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This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Highland doesn’t get intimidated by Ohio’s D-IV No. 1 baseball team
Reporting by Rob McCurdy, Marion Star / Marion Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
