Olmsted Falls Advances to Sectional Final with 6-1 win over Lorain

By Patrick Kennedy

Olmsted Falls- #7 seed Olmsted Falls defeated the #10 seed Lorain Titans 6-1 today in the sectional semifinal and will play at Avon tomorrow in the sectional championship game.

Lorain struck first scoring in the top half of the 4th inning.

Michael Clark beat out a slowly hit ground ball to the Bulldogs’ shortstop Eric Hanna and then proceeded to steal second making it look effortless.

On a Javier Caraballo ground ball to the left side of the infield, Clark waited for the ball to be thrown across the diamond and then took off for third.

Romel’s throw was offline and Clark came around to score on an error, showing off his speed.

In the bottom of the 4th, the Bulldogs scored two of their own.

Sully Kilbane got on with a single and Colin Romel was hit by a pitch and after a passed ball, the Bulldogs had runners at second and third with no outs.

Lorain pitcher Jayden Kender struck out the next two Olmsted Falls hitters, bringing up Brian Eisman.

Eisman hit a ball to the shortstop and beat the play bringing in Kilbane.

Romel attempted to score as well and was called out at the plate but the call was quickly changed to safe after the home plate umpire realized the catcher had dropped the ball.

The Bulldogs held a 2-1 lead heading into the bottom of the 6th inning when they broke it open.

After two straight Bulldogs reached base Ricky Costragano laid down a bunt and an errant throw allowed a run to score.

With runners on second and third, Eisman came up clutch with another hit, knocking in two more.

“I just tried to square the ball up, I hadn’t been hitting so good so I was just trying to keep it simple and square the ball up, keep it up the middle and run as fast as I could to first base,” Eisman said.

He got all the way to third from a fielder’s choice and a passed ball.

An RBI ground out from Bret Asadorian ended the scoring for the sixth inning and the night.

“We were hitting the ball hard from the first inning on, it seemed like the harder we hit the ball the less their fielder had to move to catch it.

“The game of baseball is one of those situations where if you hit the ball hard good things will happen and most of our runs came off of balls that weren’t our best hit balls and like I said that’s baseball,” Bulldog coach Dan Largent said following the game.

Nate Causey picked up the win for the Bulldogs going 7 innings giving up no earned runs on 4 hits.

For the Titans, Jayden Kender took the loss going 5.2 innings giving up 5 earned runs on 5 hits.

For Olmsted Falls, the Bulldogs will travel to Avon to take on the #2 seeded Eagles.

“Collin Romel is going to start on the mound for us tomorrow, he’s been working his way back into the rotation, we knew that Nate [Causey] was going to go out there and compete and he’s 5-1 now on the year.

“We knew Nate was going to take care of business today and that sets up a nice matchup tomorrow, we played [Avon] Monday and we were up 7-5 going into the 7th and we let them back in so we have some unfinished business with the Eagles tomorrow,” Largent said.

If you want to see good baseball, go out to Avon tomorrow for what should be a thriller.