Rockets took unlikely path to title

Editor’s note: Whether key plays, incredible achievements or milestone events, sports are full of instances that stick out more than others. Sports editor Chris Schanz has seen a ton of them. In this “Memorable Moments” series, he’ll revisit some important moments in area athletics.

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It’s not always the fact a team wins a title that sticks out the most, but rather the manner in which it goes about doing so.

Needing two wins, against a team it lost to earlier in the tournament, the Portland Rockets had their backs against the proverbial wall.

Another loss and their season would end.

It was Aug. 6, 2017, at Carrington Field in Fort Wayne.

The Rockets were two days removed from a 2-1 loss to the Battle Creek Behnke.

They made their way through the rest of pool play, facing elimination in each game.

On “Championship Sunday,” as Portland manager Randy Miller likes to call it, the Rockets met the Behnke again.

This time they had to win twice, as the Behnke had yet to suffer a loss in the double-elimination National Amateur Baseball Federation Regional Tournament.

Dan Bollenbacher, a flame-throwing right-hander and South Adams product, averted damage in game one. He gave up six earned runs on 12 hits in 8 1/3 innings with six strikeouts and three walks.

But Portland led the entire way. A three-spot in the third inning put the Rockets on top, and they were ahead 5-0 before the Behnke got on the board in the home half of the fifth. Two runs in each of the sixth and seventh innings staked Portland to a 9-2 advantage.

Battle Creek then got to Bollenbacher for four runs in the bottom of the ninth. He gave way to one of the younger Rockets, 2015 Jay County High School graduate Chandler Jacks, who got a strikeout and a game-ending pop fly for the save and a 9-6 Rocket win, during which Portland’s boys of summer smacked 18 total hits.

Then in the second game, Miller turned toward another crafty veteran on the mound, 2002 JCHS graduate Mitch Waters.

Thing is, a week earlier Waters had tweaked a hamstring and wasn’t able to run well. On top of that, he had been fighting a shoulder injury for a number of seasons and had to ditch the plan during his younger years of just trying to blow pitches by opposing hitters.

So Waters had to be a little more efficient with his pitches.

“I didn’t think I could strike a lot of guys out today,” he said after the tournament. “When you haven’t pitched for a while that is kind of what happens. I was just trying to pitch to contact. I know we have a good defensive crew. I knew we hit the ball. I knew if we kept it close and let them play we’d do it.”

With Waters on the bump, Battle Creek grabbed a 2-0 lead with in the bottom of the third inning in the winner-take-all game with a trip to the NABF World Series up for grab.

Portland responded with six runs in the next half inning and never looked back. It had 14 hits — including four doubles and a triple — in scoring 11 consecutive runs for a 11-2 victory and the championship.

Waters surprisingly squeezed eight innings out of his ailing body, scattering six hits while striking out four and walking one.

“Today we had a Mitch Waters and a Dan Bollenbacher, like the old days,” Miller said. “They used to be one and two back in the day and they were one-two again today. They were tough customers. They were champions.”

So, too, were the Portland Rockets, who had reached the NABF World Series for the second time in five years.

“Championship baseball has got many facets,” Miller said. “All clicked for a double win today. The odds were not well stacked.”

It was more than just those two crafty pitchers, though.

New Rockets Brandon Reamon and Dustin Lewis led the team with five hits for the tournament. Cody Krumlauf, Dalton Tinsley and Collin Affolder had four hits apiece. Krumlauf, the team’s catcher, had a team-best six RBIs on the day, including four in game two.

Zach Tanner and Justin Marrero — two holdovers including Tinsley, Bollenbacher and Waters who were on the 2012 NABF World Series team — had a double and two singles apiece. Alex Delk ripped a pair of hits, and Chris Miller rifled a two-run single in the fourth inning of game two and then chugged around the bases to score from first as part of Portland’s six-run inning.

When it was all said and done, Portland got to Battle Creek for 32 hits, including nine for extra bases.

It got to the point late in game two, when Battle Creek knew it was all but done, the Behnke got lazy fielding the ball as the Rockets knocked it all around the diamond.

“Once we got going, they had to be shaking their heads because they seemed to have no answer,” Miller said. “Day baseball is our mantra. We like to see the white pearl fly in the deep blue sky. We just had Rocket attack after attack.”

The fact the Rockets, who had gone more than four decades without a world series berth and got two in the span of five years, had won the regional tournament was historic enough.

But it was the manner in which they did it — hits galore and unlikely efforts on the mound all while facing elimination — that makes for a memorable moment.