The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Comets blank Shoremen, have first to themselves
Amherst exacts revenge on SWC foe from loss earlier in the season
Amherst blanked Avon Lake, 5-0, in a key Southwestern Conference game April 30 behind another dominant performance from pitcher Evan Shaw ver.
The Comets exacted a bit of revenge from a shutout loss at the hands of the Shoremen earlier this season.
The win secures the Comets sole possession of first place in the SWC with three games remaining.
Shawver worked himself out of an early jam in the first inning and Amherst (17-4, 13-2 SWC) took advantage of a few base runners when both Shawver and Ryan Glowacki drove in a run to give the Comets a 2-0 lead that held up the whole game.
Despite putting together some quality at-bats against arguably one of the best high school pitchers in the state, Avon Lake (115, 10-3 SWC) had no answers for Shawver’s punishing curveball and was unable to bring even one of the six stranded runners around the bases.
“Any time (Shawver) steps on the mound, you kind of expect him to pitch well and that’s what he did today,” Amherst coach Matt Rositano said. “I thought Avon Lake ... their hitters had a great approach against him. They fouled a lot of pitches off, they ran his pitch count up and that’s something a lot of teams haven’t done this year.
“He got himself in trouble a couple times early but he has the stuff where if he gets himself in trouble he can pitch himself right out of it.”
The Comets added three insurance runs in the sixth after being nearly set down in order through the middle four innings by Avon Lake starting pitcher Ryan Shinko and the Shoremen defense.
Shinko allowed one hit and one walk in that time, but the damage of the first inning was too much to overcome against Shawver who finished with 12 strikeouts to bring his season total to 88
in 41 innings pitched.
“We told the kids if (Shawver’s) breaking off curveballs for strikes you tip your hat to him,” Avon Lake coach Kevin Marlow said. “Especially early in the game we had them sitting on the fastball and we actually had some good at-bats all day against him, but he was throwing that off speed pitch for strikes so you tip your hat to him.
“When you have runners on, especially against a guy like this, you’ve got to do something and he was throwing hard and we couldn’t square up to anything. ... I told the kids we don’t have any margin for error when we’re facing a pitcher like that.”
Shawver produced at the
plate as well for Amherst and was the only Comet to have a multi-hit game. He finished 2-for-3 with a double, a run and two RBI while Hunter Cassidy added an RBI double.
“Last time we played (Avon Lake) it was really cold so the ball wasn’t travelling nowhere off our bats,” Shawver said. “That’s not an excuse. But I think today we came out here knowing they beat us once and that we couldn’t let them get up early.
“We’ve been struggling at the plate but the past few games we’ve been focusing up and we’ve been working the counts more to get on base.”
In six innings pitched, Shinko (2-2), who was fresh off throwing a nohitter
against North Ridgeville on April 26, allowed five hits, two earned runs and two walks while striking out five.
Aidan Jantz had a pair of hits and Jacob Krukowski added a hit and the lone walk for Avon Lake, which has to win out in its next four SWC games and hope Amherst loses two of its next three to share the title with the Comets.
“This is kind of a little bit of an emotional letdown but we reminded the kids we have four more games in the league this week and we’ve got a lot of baseball to play,” Marlow said. “I told them overall it’s a good effort. We had some nice atbats it just didn’t happen for us today.”