Monroe 4, Talawanda 3
Hornets outlast Braves in 11-inning, 3-hour marathon
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
OXFORD — What started out looking like a quick game turned into an 11-inning, three-hour battle Tuesday, April 29, in Oxford.
The Monroe Hornets edged the Talawanda Braves 4-3 after Devin King scored on a Jason Osterman sacrifice fly in the top of the 11th inning. The shallow hit ball merited chants of "it's not deep enough" from spectators, but King was able to score easily after an errant throw.
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"I kind of just decided from the get-go that we needed to get it in," King said. "So I just hustled my hardest and tried to get in there."
J.C. Kellis worked a one-two-three 11th inning to earn his first save of the year and gave Cody Ridinger, who allowed one run in 2 1/3 innings of relief, his first win.
"Cody did a great job, J.C. did a great job. It's nice to have a couple of kids that can throw," Monroe baseball coach Bob Hunt said.
The Hornets jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after a sacrifice fly by Kellis allowed Ridinger to score. Monroe extended it's lead to
2-0 in the fifth inning when Osterman was hit by a pitch, advanced to second on Kellis's single, stole third and scored on a bloop single by Tyler Haskin.
The Braves got on the board in the bottom of the fifth when back-to-back singles by Steven Kuehn and Stephen Reece allowed Josh Hogg to score. A two-out throwing error in the bottom of the sixth allowed Talawanda to tie the game at 2-2. The bottom of the eighth inning presented the best chance for the Braves to come away with the win. After consecutive singles loaded the bases with two outs, Ridinger came on in relief of Kyle Stone and got Kuehn to line out to first base to end the threat.
"From a spectator point of view it was probably a pretty good ball game. From a coach's point of view it was ugly, it was ugly baseball," Talawanda coach Pete Maus said. "We had a lot of opportunities where we could have scored runs or got outs and we just didn't execute."
Tre Short was almost the hero for Monroe off the bench with a two-out, pinch-hit RBI single in the top of the 10th, but the Braves answered back with a run of their own in the bottom of the inning to extend the game.
"Just being cold, not hitting or swinging all day, not moving your legs at all it's hard just coming in and getting a good pinch hit," Short said. "Longest game of the season, it got cold here at the end. It was a good pitcher's duel. I'm glad to come out with the win."
Contact this reporter at dgedney@coxohio.com.
