Saturday's 2B Baseball: Pitching, Patience, Has Pirates Headed to Final Four

Adna came out and held a lead here at Bearcat Stadium for 13 of the 14 innings they played on Saturday on their way to a pair of wire-to-wire wins and a 2B Region 1 championship.

The Pirates defeated Ocosta 4-0 in their first game of the day on the back of a complete game shutout by pitcher Sawyer Burdick. Adna then topped Rainier 4-1 in the title game with an effective effort on the mound from Camden Ryan and an emphatic save by Conner Weed.

All the winning and accolades weren’t nearly enough to turn Adna coach Jon Rooklidge into a sappy sack of contentment at the helm of the ship though.

“I don’t think we were lights out today but we were solid,” reported Rooklidge in the postmortem as his players posed for photographs with family and friends to celebrate the spot they’d just earned in the state final four.

In the first game, Burdick not only pitched all seven innings but he also whacked a double in the second inning to plate Abel Ingle and Chance Fay to break the game open a bit at 3-0. On the mound, the junior right-hander struck out seven, and gave up only three hits but also walked or hit a handful of Wildcats. Those free passes kept Ocosta in the hunt all game long but Burdick was able to strand runners in every inning except the sixth. That inning he simply sent the Wildcats back to the dugout in order with a pair of looking strikeouts to end the inning.

“The one thing about Sawyer is he just competes,” said Rooklidge. “He knows big games and he gets amped up for them.”

Several of Burdick’s late inning strikeouts came on his hammer curveball, but in the early going, that out pitch was acting more like a ball peen than a sledge.

“I just had relax myself, focus in on the mitt, and get the job done, said Burdick. “I love playing in situations like that. The main thing you’ve got to do is just go play baseball.”

The Pirates, with a little help from Ocosta, actually gave Burdick all the room he needed to tinker with his offspeed offerings right from the get go. In the first inning, Elmer Loose led things off with a single then advanced to second on an error. Loose later scored when a Wildcats’ infielder failed to glove a ground ball off the bat of Matthew Scheuber. Then in the fifth inning, Scheuber started things off with a hit and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Trevor Minkoff.

With a patient approach at the plate, the Pirates were able to chase Ocosta starter Cole Hatton after 5 ⅓ innings and two earned runs. Burdick, Loose, and Scheuber all had one hit each.

In the shadow of the win, Rooklidge still found room to lament a few defensive plays gone awry, and other areas he perceives as overdue for improvement.

“I’m just not sure if we’ve got a rhythm on things yet,” said Rooklidge. “We just had a couple of uncharacteristic errors and too many runners left on base.”

In the regional championship game, the Pirates faced off against pitcher Ricky Cruse from Rainier. Adna countered with Camden Ryan and he did not disappoint the Pirate faithful.

Ryan, a right-hander with a memorable follow through that leaves him hurtling toward first base, wound up tossing 6 ⅔ innings with seven strikeouts and just one earned run.

The Pirates plated two runs in the second inning after Cole Fay led off with a single. One batter later, Ryan struck out but took off for first on the dropped third strike. The throw from the catcher sailed well into right field and Ryan later scored on another Rainier infield error.

In the third inning, catcher Cole Fay cracked a double to center field to score Weed, who had led off the inning with a walk. The Pirates final run came in the fourth inning via a two-out rally when Minkoff reached base on a walk then advanced on a single from Loose. During the next at bat, Minkoff took off for third on a ball in the dirt and score when the catcher's throw tailed into left field.

After Ryan walked the leadoff man in the bottom of the seventh inning, Rooklidge turned to Central 2B League co-MVP, Conner Weed for a little relief out of the bullpen. The first batter he faced reached on an error and then a hit brought a run in to score, but Weed quickly stifled any burgeoning hope for the Mountaineers with a pair of strikeouts and a flyout caught in foul territory down the left field line.

Cole Fay had the big hit for Adna in the regional championship game and also caught every inning. He says it's fun to work with pitchers with such vastly divergent arsenals and personalities as Burdick, Weed and Ryan.

“Sometimes we joke about all the different pitches I have to block in the dirt, but that’s my job. I’m just supposed to be a wall back there,” said Fay, who was also 3 for 4 in the title game with a run scored and an RBI.

Loose and Weed each added a hit for Adna in the title game.

According to Rooklidge, the relative dearth of hits for his squad and the close nature of both games never seemed to have much impact on his team’s confidence or approach.

“First of all, I think part of it is just that they are smart kids. We are academic state champions and I think that has a lot to do with it,” explained Rooklidge. “The other thing is they are not emotional. They are real even keel. Sometimes we have to ask them to get excited, but they don’t seem to have a lot of panic if them.”

The Pirates did enjoy a moment of levity after the day’s final out had been recorded, though, when substitutes Cody Young and Tyler Minkoff dumped a bucket of ice water over Ryan and Weed in celebration of their dual pitching performance.

“I’m hyped, and I think this team is hyped,” noted Fay.

With his Pirates cutting loose in a rare bit of revelry, Rooklidge continued to keep a steady hand on the wheel and a twenty thousand league stare on the horizon.

“Could you not run that photo?” he asked a photographer. “We’d like to save that for the final four.”

Adna will face Brewster at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 25 at Centralia’s Wheeler Field.