Maple Hill Wildcats capture Class C title
TROY, NY » The No.1 seed Maple Hill Wildcats capitalized on a number of miscues in the field by the No. 6 seed Canajoharie Cougars, en route to a 12-2 victory and a Class C sectional championship.
“We talk about sectional time trying to produce runs. They threw one up in the first inning, I was a little nervous, that could’ve been a two or three spot so it was a little minor victory,” Wildcats head coach Rico Frese said after the Cougars jumped out to a 1- 0 lead in the first on an RBI- double to center by Isaiah Logan.
“Putting the two up in the bottom of the first kind of set the tone,” coach Frese said. “Our pitching’s been very, very good all year and our defense, I don’t think we had an error today. Our hitting is starting to come around, in the last five or six games it’s starting to catch up with the other facets of the game for us. “
That first frame would be the start of an afternoon which saw the Wildcats post at least one run in every inning of their mercy rule victory.
Tyler Hanrahan’s sacrifice fly RBI to right off Griffin Collins, squared the game at one. The second error of the inning at short, helped the Wildcats take
their first lead of the contest.
In the second inning, Maple Hill pitcher Alec Yager responded by throwing up a doughnut, inducing a 5- 4-3 double play ball.
“I just went through what I do every time I pitch, treat it as a normal game, threw strikes. My curveball was a little off today but we worked on it towards the end of the game and everything worked out,” Yager said of his complete game outing. “We knew a lot of these guys could pull the ball so my main key point was to keep it outside and ground
them out.”
Producing the eventual winning run in the third was Nick Butler. Butler smashed an RBI- double to left and increased the Maple Hill lead to 3-1.
“Every single time I’m up I give myself one swing to really get into one and that’s what I did. I got into the first one down the line and I got some air under one in the second at-bat,” Butler said of his hitting exploits. “The last at-bat we were up nine and I was really going to call game on that one so I got out a little bit early on it,” Butler said after coming within inches of a home run to left, just wide of the leftfield foul pole in his final at- bat, before eventually coaxing a walk.
The Wildcats broke the game open in the fourth. Following a hit by pitch and a walk, Hanrahan singled to center to chase Collins from the game. With Nick Shariff on, two batters later, a two- out, tworun butcher boy single to right from James Miller, made it 8-2. As the inning advanced, Kyle Telford looped a two-run single of his own to right, making it 10-2.
Erik Burns made it 11-2 with an RBI- double to center in the fifth.
Finishing matters off in the sixth was Hanrahan, who lifted a sacrifice fly RBI to center.
“I kind of just hit it and watched it. It’s not the most sportsmanship thing to do but in the moment it
just happened and it was one of the coolest feeling’s ever,” Hanrahan said of the walk- off drive.
“It’s been what we’ve been working on the entire season,” Hanrahan said of his team’s performance. “Everyone’s just been working on trying to drive the ball, it showed today, we had a ton of hits, consistently put the ball in play every single time and it ended up paying off for us today.”
“Best feeling ever,” Yager said on the victory. “I’ve been playing on this team for five years, since eighth grade and this is my third time playing on this field and the first two times we got maroon patches and man does it feel good to have a white one.”