Run ends for youthful squad

YORKTOWN — Andy Kohler yelled after he was thrown out at third.
Josh Vaughn was frustrated after watching a called third strike.
Chandler Jacks walked off the mound in the seventh inning with uncertainty in his eyes.
The end of their high school career was near.
Jay County High School’s baseball team had its improbable run to a sectional final end Monday in a 3-0 loss to the Delta Eagles in the Class 3A Sectional 24 tournament at Yorktown.
But while the end to the season was indeed disheartening, there were plenty of positives.
For one, the Patriots (14-13) had lost to the Eagles 11-1 in five innings on May 16. So dropping a 3-0 decision was slightly easier to stomach. Also, more than half of the starting lineup is made up of underclassmen.
Jay County coach Lea Selvey set a goal for his youthful team to win 15 games. They were one away from reaching that mark and also a sectional title.
“For a young group … nobody should feel sorry for us,” he said. “We’re going to be all right. I just challenged them. We can’t be happy. We have to move on and move up.”
The Patriots’ frustrations started in the top of the third inning, during which starting pitcher Jake Myers struggled to find the strike zone and walked Delta No. 9 hitter Brady Pease. A wild pitch moved Pease to second, and another wild pitch two batters later brought him home for a 1-0 Eagles lead.
Delta almost doubled the score, but Mitchell Hahn was thrown out at the dish while trying to score on the same wild pitch.
During the bottom half of the frame, Kohler hit a two-out double and was cut off at third trying to stretch it into a triple.
“Kid made a nice recovery and a nice throw,” said Selvey.
Delta left fielder Jadon Henry had to jump over a diving Hahn to avoid contact, grabbed the ball and fired a seed to shortstop Adisyn Coffey who made a perfect relay throw to his brother Arian Coffey at third.
“We still had to get something to get him in with two outs,” Selvey said. “I probably should have just held him up. (I was) just trying to get things going a little bit.”
In the fourth inning, Tanner Lambert led off with a double to the gap in left center, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Henry and scored on a squeeze bunt from Nich Bantz to put the Eagles on top, 2-0.
“Our offense has been our weak point all year,” said Delta skipper Seth Paul, whose team had three hits combined in the sectional semifinal and final — two against the Patriots and one in a 1-0 win Friday over Hamilton Heights. “We bunt the ball really well and we work on that a lot because we are not very good hitters. Tonight, we had two perfect bunts that got us that big run.”
Then with a 2-0 cushion, Delta junior pitcher Jacob Van Pelt settled in. After Kohler’s double, he retired eight straight, including striking out all three batters in the fourth inning. He mixed up his pitches well, keeping the Patriot hitters expecting one pitch and getting another.
“Lately he’s had a hard time getting ahead of hitters and that has kind of put us behind and he’s had to throw a lot of extra pitches,” Paul said. Van Pelt threw seven innings, struck out eight and gave up three hits without allowing a walk. “Today he was in front of every hitter … he throws three pitches for strikes really good — fastball, curveball and changeup — which is really tough on high school hitters.
“When you’re behind you can’t throw those three pitches. I think that was the key. We had them off balance all day because they’d be looking for one pitch and we’d throw the other pitch.”
Jay County had a runner reach second base in each of the fifth and sixth innings but wasn’t able to bring him home. In the fourth, Kohler reached on an error and then stole second base, but that’s when Vaughn watched a pitch on the outside of the plate for a called third strike.
Freshman Wyatt Geesaman hit a double to left field with two outs in the fifth inning, but his junior brother Jacob popped out to right field to end the threat.
An unearned run off relief pitcher Jacks gave Delta a 3-0 lead. Jacks, who will play baseball next season for Wabash College, had six strikeouts, including five of the final six batters he faced.
“I am very proud of these kids,” said Selvey. “They battled back. They had been resilient.”