Baseball: Ottawa sets tone early, rolls past St. Bede in 5 innings

PERU – The fourth pitch of Wednesday afternoon’s baseball game between Ottawa and St. Bede set the direction the contest would go as the Pirates’ Jaxon Cooper’s infield ground ball was misplayed for an error.

The Pirates (3-2) scored in every inning, taking full advantage of four Bruins errors, six walks and four hit batters while recording six hits. Throw in a solid outing from junior starting pitcher Colin Fowler and Ottawa rolled to a 12-2 victory in five innings at the Academy, their third consecutive win.

Cooper eventually scored in the first inning on a dropped fly ball, then in the second, Garrett Shymanski and Jace Veith were hit by pitches by SBA starter Alan Spencer before Jackson Mangold drilled a two-strike, 3-run double to the gap in right to make it 4-0.

“We were able to contributions from 1-9 in the order, played pretty clean in the field, and Colin (Fowler) threw the ball really well, pounded the strike zone and was very efficient.”

—  Tyler Wargo, Ottawa baseball coach after the Pirates' 12-2 win over St. Bede in five innings

“The first four games this year we’ve struggle a little bit with situational hitting,” Ottawa coach Tyler Wargo said. “Guys on third with less than two outs or runners in scoring position with no outs, we’ve just been striking out way too much. I felt like Mangold’s double there in the second was the deep breath for everyone. That hit just relaxed everyone.

“We were able to get contributions from 1-9 in the order, played pretty clean in the field, and Colin threw the ball really well, pounded the strike zone and was very efficient. We had a lot of good moments today. I feel like we played an all-around great game, and this was a great team win for us.”

The Pirates scored two more times in the third with Adam Swanson and Mangold recording RBIs off lefty reliever Gino Ferrari. The hosts scored in their half of the inning as Aiden Mullane reached second on an error and later scored on a groundout by Gino Ferrari.

In the fourth, Cooper drove in a run with a single before he teamed up with Shymanski at third on a double steal to make it 8-1.

St. Bede (4-1) made it 8-2 in the bottom of the inning on a RBI fielder’s choice by AJ Hermes.

“This was a rough one,” St. Bede coach Bill Booker said. “In every aspect of the game we were beaten today. We weren’t sharp, and we paid the price.

“It started on the very first play of the game where we couldn’t make the play, but we were able to get out of it only down one. But then on the mound we couldn’t locate and were behind in the count to almost every batter. When you set the table for any team, especially one like Ottawa, they are going to cash in. We didn’t play very good defense either and didn’t compete at the plate like we are capable of.

“In the second inning, we hit a couple guys and (Mangold) comes up with a big two-out hit. We just weren’t able to get anything going really after that.”

Ottawa scored four runs in the fifth as Jacob Rosetto lined a two-run single off Carson Riva, Shymanski posted a RBI groundout, and Lucas Farabaugh poked a RBI base hit.

Fowler finished with a line of five innings, four hits, one earned run, no walks and five strikeouts on just 73 pitches.

“I wanted to come out today and not only focus on throwing first-pitch strikes but get those strikes with my curveball,” Fowler said. “I always want to work from ahead in the count, but I feel like if I can get the first pitch strike with my breaking ball that really gets the batter off balance, gets them guessing right away. I’ve worked on that pitch a lot, and I feel like it’s a pitch I can really use to get batters out in any situation. I thought I did a pretty good job of doing that today.”

Both teams are scheduled to play Thursday with Ottawa going against Pontiac at King Field and St. Bede hosting Midland in a Tri-County Conference contest.