- Fairfield Christian Academy earned a rematch with Northmor in the Division IV district championship game.
- The Knights overcame five errors and outlasted Elgin 8-7 in nine innings Monday night.
- Northmor nipped Mechanicsburg 2-1 in eight innings also on Monday.
LANCASTER — Fairfield Christian Academy will get a rematch Wednesday night.
Last year in the Division IV district semifinals, Northmor eliminated the Knights 6-1, and they remember the loss quite well.
"They are a very good team with a lot of pitching depth. We’re going to have to go to our pitching depth, too. I lost my No. 1 and 2 (pitchers) tonight (due to high pitch counts), but I feel very confident with the 3 on the mound," FCA coach Josh Baker said. "Tomorrow we’re going to work on some of the things we messed up on here tonight, and we’ll be ready to play on Wednesday."
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No. 2 seeded FCA earned that rematch by overcoming five errors and outlasting No. 5 seed Elgin 8-7 in nine innings Monday night at Lancaster's Beavers Field in another Division IV district semifinal game.
"We don’t let too many things get to us," Baker said. "The resilience of this team, there’s just a lot of maturity here. To have five underclassmen on the field, it doesn’t look that way. We have a lot of maturity."
Answering answers
In the third inning, the Knights (21-7) struck first, scoring three runs on two hits and an error, but Elgin (15-9) immediately answered with four runs in the top of the fourth inning to take a 4-3 lead as FCA committed three errors.
Undeterred, the Knights added four more runs in the bottom of the fourth for a 7-4 edge, but as they did in the fourth, the Comets strung together another big inning, scoring three times in the sixth to tie it.
"They showed me a lot today," Elgin coach Andy Steck said. "The time we fell down 7-4, too, we bounced back. We just couldn’t get key hit to put us over the edge."
In the top of the ninth inning, Elgin got hits from Quinten Harrison and Mitchel Askew to lead off, but an infield fly and two strikeouts ended the threat.
"A.J. (Holbrook) is the pitcher of the year for a reason. To get first and second and nobody out, (there was) no negative response from him whatsoever. He found a way to get out of the inning, leaving them on first and second," Baker said.
In the bottom of the ninth, FCA started at the plate with a walk, a sacrifice bunt, an intentional walk and a hit batsman to load the bases. From there, Jimmy Schmitz ended it with a game-winning RBI single to left.
"You put all season in and in a blink of an eye it’s done and over. I really don’t have words right now," Steck said.
Elgin finished with 12 hits as Harrison, Askew and Stephen Castillo-Carey had three singles apiece. Harrison and Castillo-Carey pitched for the Comets, allowing nine hits.
Northmor needs extras, too
Top-seeded Northmor nipped No. 4 Mechanicsburg 2-1 in eight innings also on Monday.
Mechanicsburg (18-6) struck first with a run in the second inning, but the Golden Knights (22-5) tied it up in the third.
Drew Hammond doubled among Northmor's four hits. Grant Bentley and Trevor Brubaker combined for their own four-hitter, striking out eight and walking two as Brubaker pitched the final two innings. Mechanicsburg's pitchers struck out 10 and walked five.
The rematch with FCA will be played Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Big Walnut and will be for a Division IV district championship and regional berth. Northmor has played in the last two district title games, losing 10-0 to Liberty Union while in Division III in 2022 and losing a wild one 10-9 to Berne Union in D-IV last year.
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