The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Kenston’s McKenna hits walk-off homer for title
Bombers get past upstart South for Division I regional berth
It was the stuff of dreams for Kenston’s Drew McKenna on May 26.
With the scored tied at 1 in the bottom of the seventh against Willoughby South in a Division I district final at Eucld, McKenna delivered a moment that will be long remembered in Kenston baseball lore. McKenna’s three-run home run to left secured a 4-1 win and the Bombers’ first district title in 22 seasons.
“I knew it was gone as soon as it left the bat,” said McKenna. “It’s really special to be able to come out here and bring the district championship home for Kenston for the first time in 22 years. It’s special for the team, not just me. I’m happy with what we accomplished as a team and ready to keep the season going.”
The Bombers will meet North Royalton in a D-I regional semifinal at Louisville on June 2 with first pitch scheduled for 5 p.m.
Kenston jumped to an 1-0 lead against the Rebels in the second on a Shane Rothlisberger RBI single.
Strong defenses on both sides kept the game without a run until South had two on and two outs with James Miller at the plate in the top of the seventh.
The freshman placed the ball just short of the right fielder’s glove and Jeremiah Atwell beat the relay throw home to tie the game at 1. Those dramatics set the stage for McKenna, and he delivered.
Even with McKenna’s walkoff, hits were hard to come by for Kenston against South’s Giovanni Holmecki. The Rebels pitcher gave up four hits, two of which were to McKenna and the defense handled every opportunity the Bombers put the ball in play.
Kenston coach Joe Hritz knew his team needed to get a hold of one pitch and it could punch their ticket to regionals.
With one out in the bottom of the seventh, Hritz’s confidence in his players only grew.
“There was one bad pitch and he was able to get a hold of it,” said Hritz. “There’s nobody we would rather have in that situation than Drew. He looked at me when they called time to talk to the pitcher and told me ‘You’ll meet me back in the dugout, this game is over’. We give a lot of credit to their pitcher, he did a great job of avoiding the bats all day. Drew finally started to get some solid contact in the fifth and that was for a double. The bats then followed after that.”
Parker Munday kept South off the scoreboard for six innings, gave up three hits and struck out eight. Munday rebounded quickly from the Rebels’ first run of the contest, as he chased down a pop-up in foul territory to end the seventh.
“After the game that we had played before that point, I wasn’t worried when we tied it up,” said Munday. “I knew that we were coming back to the top of our order in the bottom of the inning, we had the win. I was able to work my fastball in the first few innings and they had trouble getting to it. I then went to work in my curve. South has some really good hitters and I knew it was going to be important to work in that curve.”
After their run to the district final and comeback against Kenston, South coach Brian Pellegrini has been happy with the progress that his team showed in the latter half of the season. The Rebels had an aggressive approach in every part of their game since the start of their postseason and Pellegrini didn’t change that mindset in the district final.
“The way that we’ve rebounded from the beginning of this season to now, it’s like a night-andday team,” said Pellegrini. “I can’t be prouder of the way that we fought today. We made one mistake defensively and I’m glad that that didn’t cost us the game. With the way that their pitcher threw today we didn’t have many opportunities to score and there was no doubt in my mind to send Jeremiah. If it was a clean relay he would’ve been out but we got a little lucky and were able to tie it up.”