Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
AKRON — Throughout the season, Minford has relied on its grit, resilience and mental toughness to win games.
It was those intangibles that propelled the Falcons to Akron and into a Final 4 appearance.
But ultimately, that’s where the Falcons’ season was destined to end.
Minford’s offense unfortunately mustered only four hits on Saturday while leaving six on base, suffering a 4-0 loss to Millbury Lake in a Division III state semifinal.
CREDIT: Erica Fike/SOSA
“We just couldn’t get the timely hits when we needed to, but that’s how baseball goes sometimes and it wasn’t our day,” Minford coach Eli Daniels said. “Credit to Lake. They have a really good team and they play very fast. Their pitcher [Drew Tajblik] is really good, probably a top three pitcher we’ve seen this year and he played great. Overall though, I’m so proud of these guys for the season we had.”
After a scoreless first inning, Lake struck the scoreboard when Caleb Tobias ripped an RBI double to right field, putting the Flyers up 1-0. They had a chance to add on with the bases loaded, but the Falcons escaped the jam.
“We’ve gotten into, and escaped, jams all tournament long. Even in the regional series, we didn’t do any of our damage into the fifth inning and after,” Daniels said. “We knew it was going to be a battle all game.”
Seeing that run cross the plate was all the Flyers needed to see. And they added on in the third.
With runners on second and third, Lake scored on a fielder’s choice to make it a 2-0 game, which was followed by an RBI groundout from Jack Sobzack and an RBI single from Tobias, extending the lead to 4-0.
“We didn’t execute the routine plays that inning, but Lake also found the gaps as well,” Daniels said. “They only had two or three really hard hits all game long, but in that inning, they hit a lot of droopy type of balls and they’re fast enough to outrun those balls to get on base. They put the ball in play, made us make plays and we stressed out a little too much and they scored a couple runs.”
That was more than enough run support for the Flyers on the day.
Ground balls were fielded, fly outs were caught, and any, and every, routine play. The Falcons just couldn’t find gaps.
Carson Cronin collected two hits on the day, while Carson Frazie and Cam Thacker had a hit each. Thacker also went the distance on the mound, striking out seven batters.
CREDIT: Erica Fike/SOSA
Cronin and Thacker are two of seven seniors alongside Mason Book, Rhyan Queen, Grant Wheeler, Isaac Porter and Kyle Laxton for the Falcons as they end their season at 22-7 and as sectional, district and regional champions for just the second time in school history.
“These boys were the epitome of what Minford baseball is all about and I couldn’t be more proud of them from where we started to where we are right now,” Daniels said. “These seniors really took over in the second half of the season, showed great leadership and set the tone for how our season finished. Not many people believed we’d make it this far, but these 18 kids in the dugout did and that belief is all they needed to make this run.”
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