BELOIT — When his team floundered a bit at the end of the regular season, losing six of seven games, Beloit Turner head baseball coach Jeff Clowes told his Trojans “there is always a reason why and every valley is because there is a better peak.”
A little long for a slogan on a T-shirt, but they got the idea.
That difficult stretch could be chalked up to a young team still learning how to win the close games.
Thursday night, it looked like they learned their lesson quite well. The Trojans got quality pitching from starter Andy Buckley and reliever Cesar Alfaro and enough clutch hitting to pull out a 6-4 WIAA Division 3 regional victory over Evansville at the Stateline YMCA Youth Sports Complex.
“I think we learned that we have to play our best baseball at the right time,” said right fielder Ethan Halon, who was 3-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI to lead Turner’s 12-hit attack. “We’re on the right track. We played with confidence and we were able to stack good at-bats on top of each other.”
The Trojans lost their previous meeting with Evansville pitcher Alex Karnes 2-1 when he held them to four hits. To avoid a replay, Clowes and the Trojans tried a different game plan.
“I thought our approaches at the plate were much better than the last time,” Clowes said. “Karnes is a great pitcher. He is very efficient. He doesn’t walk guys and he puts a lot of pressure on hitters. We were way too passive the last time. He’s way too good a pitcher to just sit up there and observe. We told them to live and die with being aggressive.
The Trojans managed 10 hits and five runs off Karnes and saddled him with the loss. They tacked on two hits and a run against reliever Owen Kieffer, too.
“We came into the regionals with a new mind-set,” said Turner’s Cesar Alfaro, who moved from shortstop to the pitcher’s mound for the final four innings and allowed two runs (one earned) with six strikeouts.
The Trojans staked starter Andy Buckley to a 2–0 lead in the first inning. Brody Berg took that being aggressive strategy to heart and belted Karnes’ first pitch for a double. Zack Ries walked and both Trojans came around to score on Fernando Tillery’s double.
The Blue Devils tied it in the second, however, with Karnes delivering a two-out, two-strike, two-run single to center field.
Turner moved right back in front 3-2 in the bottom of the inning. Halon doubled leading off and scored on a single by Carston Jacobson, who was 2-for-3 with an RBI.
“Everybody from the top of the lineup to the bottom can hit,” Halon said. “I just felt very confident tonight. I have been taking a lot of extra swings.”
Buckey tossed a scoreless third inning, thanks to shortstop Alfaro’s diving stop keeping a would-be run from scoring and Clowes then went to him to pitch the fourth.
“Andy did a nice job battling early,” the coach said. “He would have liked to have a better breaking ball and they’re a good hitting team so we needed to have a little of a mix. Cesar’s fastball is good enough even if his breaking ball isn’t there and tonight he had both of them. I’m really proud of Cesar. He was very composed and he found his way out of some tight jams. Very few innings are going to be clean in the postseason. There always seems to be a jam.”
It helps to throw strikes and Alfaro only walked one.
“Coach knows we have options in the bullpen and he just went with me in this game and I took advantage of it,” he said. “I think my breaking ball was really on. Some were sharper than others, but they were all working pretty well.”
Turner took a 4-2 lead in the fourth on back-to-back singles by Halon and Jacobson and a sacrifice fly by Jayden Piccione. They made it 5-2 in the fifth on consecutive singles by Buckley, Noah Pfundheller and Hale.
Evansville closed the gap to 5-4 in the sixth on a two-run single by Bennett Keller, but the final tally belonged to the Trojans. In the sixth, Piccione reached on a bunt single and eventually scored on Kieffer’s wild pitch.
It’s just one win, but Clowes liked what he saw from his 12-11 squad who will play at third-seeded Columbus on Tuesday.
“This team has come to practice with the same attitude all season,” he said. “They’re never mailed it in. They battled to get better. A lot of it was getting better at two-strike, two-out hitting. In one-run games, you need that and tonight we got that. Give these guys credit for trusting the process and growing and not always worrying about the scoreboard. This game will eat you up if you do that.”
LINESCORES:
TURNER 6, EVANSVILLE 4
Evansville 020 002 0 — 4 9 0
Turner 210 111 x — 6 12 1
Leading hitters: Ev, Karnes 2x3, 1 run, 2 rbi; Nelson 2x3, 1 run; B. Keller 1x4, 2 rbi; L. Keller 1x3; Horgen 1x3, 1 run; Klitzman 1x3. BT, Berg 2x4, 2 runs; Ward 1x3; Tillery 1x4, 2 rbi; Buckley 1x4, 1 run; Pfundheller 1x3; Halon 3x3, 2 runs, 1 rbi; Jacobson 2x3, 1 rbi; Piccione 1x2, 1 rbi. 2B: Berg, Halon, Tillery.
Pitching: Ev, Karnes (L) 5.0-10-5-5-2-4; Kieffer 1.0-2-1-1-0-1. BT, Buckley (W) 3.0-5-2-2-1-4; Alfaro 4.0-4-2-1-1-6.
Most Popular
Comments / 0