Baseball: Sterling answers Forreston rally with walk-off win in eighth inning

STERLING – After falling behind early in Monday’s game, the Sterling baseball team showed its resiliency. The Golden Warriors then showed it again later after Forreston tied the score and sent it into extra innings.

A slow roller by Garrett Polson with two outs allowed Dale Guerrieri to score the winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning for a 6-5 Sterling win at Gartner Park.

“I’m happy for the kids,” Sterling coach Darwin Nettleton said. “They need to be rewarded for the work they’re putting in, and I know when we look at rewards, we look at wins and losses. So I’m really happy for the kids to get a win.”

Guerrieri led off the eighth with his second hit of the game, then went to second on Nick Wheatley’s sacrifice bunt; Wheatley reached on a throwing error on the play. After a strikeout, Daylen Stage moved the runners to second and third with a groundout to the pitcher, bringing Polson to the plate.

Already with a two-run double that tied the game in the third inning, this time Polson hit a squibber up the third-base line. As Guerrieri sprinted home, the throw was off-line and it reached first base at the same time Polson did; as the throw sailed past the first baseman, he and Polson collided.

After a brief discussion between the umpires, it was ruled that the throw forced the first baseman into the basepath, where he and Polson made contact; since the first baseman moved into Polson’s path, there was no runner’s interference on the play and the Polson was called safe. His teammates mobbed him halfway between first and second base for a delayed celebration.

“I was really hoping to get that at-bat,” Polson said. “It was nice to get that one to go our way, it’s huge. Every aspect of the game, that’s going to just build confidence. I feel like that’s what we need.”

“It looks like a line drive in the scorebook,” Nettleton said with a smile. “There was a lot of stuff going on there, but to his credit, Garrett has really hit the ball well all year, and he put the ball in play and made things happen.”

Forreston (14-5) forced extra innings with a seventh-inning rally. With one out and trailing 5-2, Jacob Fiorello was hit in the helmet by a pitch, then went to second on a wild pitch. Dylan Greenfield followed with an infield single on a swinging bunt, then Owen Greenfield smashed a double to the fence in center field to drive in both Fiorello and Dylan Greenfield.

Owen Greenfield then moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored the tying run on another wild pitch.

“I just wanted to hit a line drive and hit it hard somewhere, so I could drive in a run and keep the inning going. [Then on the wild pitch], I thought, ‘Man, I gotta get there and tie the game.’ I just tried to run as fast as I could,” Owen Greenfield said. “We never want to give up. We always think we’re in it until that last out.”

The Cardinals took an early lead when Fiorello scored on a wild pitch and Owen Greenfield came home on a two-out error in the top of the first for a 2-0 margin.

But Sterling (6-11) answered in the bottom of the third. Justin Null drew a one-out walk, then Colt Adams singled to put runners on the corners; he moved to second without a throw on the next pitch. After a pitching change, Daylen Stage popped out before Polson singled to right field to score Null and Adams. Braden Hartman followed with a double to the fence in left-center field to drive in Polson for a 3-2 Sterling lead.

“It was definitely kind of a sigh of relief there [when we scored],” Polson said. “Not that we were too nervous, because it was still early, but putting a couple runs on the board eases the pressure.”

The Warriors added a run in the fourth when Ethan Janssen and Guerrieri led off with singles, and Adams plated Janssen with an RBI groundout.

They stretched the lead to 5-2 when Hartman was hit by a pitch with one out in the fifth, then went to third on Blake Nettleton’s double to left-center. Trevor Dir walked to load the bases, and Janssen hit a sacrifice fly to center to drive in Hartman.

“We just tried to stay loose, because we’re a better team when we have fun,” Polson said. “We hit the ball better and play looser on defense. If everyone’s into it, I really like our odds. I feel like we’re going to win a lot of those games when we’re all having fun.”

Adams was a big key to the win on the mound. He relieved Gio Cantu with two outs in the third and threw one pitch to escape the jam, as Dylan Greenfield took off to steal second, then tried to get in a rundown when Blake Nettleton threw down to second. But Dir took the throw and gunned it right back to home plate, where Nettleton tagged out Brock Smith trying to score from third.

Adams then pitched the next three innings and didn’t allow a hit, striking out seven and walking one as the Warriors’ bats gave them the lead.

Nettleton got the win as Sterling’s third pitcher, allowing three earned runs and two hits in three innings, with seven strikeouts, one walk and a hit batter.

Cantu started and allowed two runs (one earned), two hits and a walk, and struck out five in 1 2/3 innings, including the rare four-strikeout inning in the first; he struck out the side, and also had another K where Owen Greenfield reached on a wild pitch strike three.

“Colt came in and threw really well, he was really good,” coach Nettleton said. “We were working on some limitations with pitch counts; Colt was limited, Blake was limited, and really we were just kind of thinking, ‘Let’s roll however long we can with both of them after Gio.’ And Gio threw well

“We’ve talked about it the last couple of weeks, can we be consistent offensively, defensively and on the mound? We had it there for five innings, and you’re two outs away and up three, and we can’t finish it right there. But that’s a good program over there, and it was a well-played game. It was good for the kids to get this one.”

Brendan Greenfield took the loss as Forreston’s fourth pitcher, following starter Alex Ryia, Smith and Dyson. Fiorello, Dylan Greenfield, Owen Greenfield and Tommy Appel had hits for the Cardinals, and Fiorello and Owen Greenfield scored two runs each.

Coach Mike McClellan was happy with how his team fought back and didn’t give up despite being down to their final two outs in the seventh inning.

“That was big this time of year to know you can do that, because if you’re going to go deep in the tournament, win four or five games and get into a sectional final, you’re going to have to do that and battle against one of their better kids,” he said. “I’m very, very proud of them for that. Then at the end, it was just a tough play on a slow grounder, and it was just one of those things. I thought we did everything well enough to win.”