The battle for the Akron City Series championship became even more interesting on Tuesday, as Firestone responded to a 12-2 loss from one day earlier with a 9-0 win in the second meeting of the season against archrival Ellet.
“The guys were really down yesterday,” Firestone coach Matt Brooks said of his team’s attitude after Monday’s loss.
“I told them they had 30 minutes to be down about this and tomorrow we come back out. We have a lot of senior leaders on this team. A lot of really good players. I had every confidence we were going to come back out and play a good game today. I didn’t know it was going to be 9-0, but I knew we were going to play well.”
Through four innings, the two sides were scoreless, as both starting pitchers got off to great starts.
Ellet left-hander Matt Cody struck out seven through four, while Firestone right-hander Dustin James held serve and kept the Orangemen off the board after five innings of the work.
In the bottom of the fifth, Firestone’s bats came to life.
Ben Neuser started the inning with a leadoff single, advanced to second on a wild pitch and Ben Pontius moved him over to third.
Jacob Weber, the number nine hitter in the lineup, worked an 11-pitch at-bat, before finally drawing a walk to put runners at the corners for the top of the order.
Demonte Swain drew a walk to load the bases for shortstop Max Erisey, who finally broke through for Firestone, plating a two-run single down the first base line.
James, the starting pitcher and number three hitter in the lineup drew his third walk of the day to set cleanup hitter Matt Owen up for an opportunity to blow the game open.
Owen mashed a two-run single to left, scoring Swain and Erisey to make it a 4-0 game.
Matt Dies followed it up with a two-run double over the head of the left fielder to make it a six-run game.
Firestone batted around in the inning and was able to push another run across, as Neuser reached first on an error, while Dies scored from second.
The 7-0 lead was more than enough for James, but Ellet threatened in the top of the sixth, loading the bases with two outs.
James escaped the jam and Ellet would never get any closer to scoring a run the rest of the way.
Firestone added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth, when Erisey (2-for-4, 2B, 3 RBI, 2 R) drove in Swain with an RBI double.
Owen delivered again with an RBI double and was thrown out after making the turn from second to third.
With a 9-0 lead, James finished off the complete game shutout, striking out 10 on the day while only surrendering five hits and issuing one walk.
“I knew yesterday after the game when I looked at James that this was the kind of performance we were going to get out him,” Brooks said.
“There was no way he was going to let us lose twice to Ellet in his senior year.”
“I was just hitting spots and hitting the corners,” James said of his performance on the mound.
“I just knew we needed to bounce back from a tough loss. We needed to put runs up, which we didn’t do right out of the gate, but we had that big inning and then had a tough defensive stand the whole game.”
Ellet has been the team to beat in the Akron City Series these last two years, winning back-to-back conference championships and everyone at the game was well-aware of what was at stake.
“I think our two teams are very close,” Brooks said.
“In years passed, they’ve kind of blown us out in the regular season and then they’d beat us by one run in the city championship, so we know just from a skill level that they’re a very good team and we’re pretty evenly matched. I would expect that if we’re both lucky enough to get to the city championship again, it’s going to be a very close game.”
Ellet coach John Sarver echoed those sentiments.
“This has become a rivalry because we’ve faced each other so many times in these big games and also in the city championship game,” Sarver said.
“If things stay the way they are and we both keep winning in our league, it’ll produce another good rivalry ballgame. You might think it’s going to be a closer game because we probably know who’s going to be pitching in that one for both sides. I always respect Firestone. They have good ballplayers, they come out and play hard.”
One of those ballplayers was Erisey, the sophomore shortstop, who plated the go-ahead single in the fifth and also made some great plays at shortstop.
“I struck out the first two times at bat, but I came up with bases loaded and one down, so I was just looking to put the ball in play and avoid the double play,” Erisey said.
“I was just hoping to get a run in and it turned out great. That inning was amazing for us. Weber had that 11-pitch at-bat and that was huge. That’s what really started to get us going. We got up. We got loud and we just started hitting.”
After only scoring two runs in the first game of the two-game series with the Orangemen, Brooks was pleased to see his offense wake up in a crucial match.
“We haven’t hit a lot against Ellet since I’ve been here really,” he said.
“Just seeing those guys not just get bloops or lucky hits – especially Matt Owen, who’s been hitting the ball really hard all season long – but seeing guys hitting the ball hard, get doubles, working counts, it just says a lot about all the work we’ve been putting in all season long.”
While Erisey turned out to be one of the offensive leaders of the day, it was a play in the top of the fourth, when the sophomore made a diving catch to rob cleanup hitter Garrett Haverstick of a base hit, which also proved to be a big moment in the game.
“That was huge. Erisey’s our everyday second baseman, he only slides to short when Dustin pitches, so for him to make a play like that at a position where he’s going to play in the future since he’s only a sophomore, that play was huge. I think it got us going.”
Erisey felt a bit of a weight was lifted by picking up the win over Ellet, as it was the first time of his high school career (two years) his team had beaten the Orangemen.
“Coming back from a tournament in Myrtle Beach last week, we went 3-1 and finished third in the tournament and were feeling at the top our game. Then, we went out on Monday and got smacked by Ellet. That just totally shifted our confidence in a very negative way. But we were able to come back, put a lot of runs on the board and get a huge W. Now we’re feeling great again.”
The work is not done for either team in the conference race, but it appears Firestone (12-4, 7-1) and Ellet could be headed for a classic rubber match in the Rubber City to see if Ellet can defend its crown or Firestone can overtake the throne.
Either way, both teams are putting together impressive seasons. The two head-to-head games showed what each team is capable of when playing its best ball. If both teams are on their A-Game for the potential city championship, it should be one heck of a ballgame.
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