Spoiler alert: Shelby keeps Clear Fork from setting up MOAC winner-take-all with win

BELLVILLE — As Shelby coach Jon Amicone sat back and watched four innings of scoreless baseball on Thursday night, he quickly realized his Whippets would need to get creative if they were going to pull off a road win over Clear Fork.

The base hits weren't coming, but the Whippets were getting runners on base. It was time for some old fashion small ball. The Whippets broke through for three runs in the top of the fifth and used that momentum to walk away with an 8-3 win over Clear Fork to earn the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference split with the title contenders.

After the Whippets manufactured a run after a single, an error on a bunt and a bunt single loaded the bases for Elijah Schwemley who came through with an RBI ground ball and eventually he reached on an error to keep them loaded. After a couple of popouts, it seemed the Colts would escape the jam but Alex Bruskotter came through with a huge two-out, two-RBI double to left to make it 3-0 Whippets.

“The team did a great job of figuring out ways to score when we weren’t really hitting anything solid all game long,” Bruskotter said. “That is what the great teams do. But I knew I was going to see a fastball at some point in the at-bat and I wanted to take advantage of it and I was fortunate to do that.”

The Whippets made the Colts pay for two fielding errors that allowed extra base runners, but the small ball style has always been an Amicone staple.

“We always try to do the little things and put pressure on defenses especially when the hits just aren’t there,” Amicone said. “You have to be able to switch to Plan B offensively when you aren’t hitting the ball so we got some bunts down and ran the bases effectively.”

The Colts' misfortune didn't start in the fifth inning. Instead, it came right from the get-go. After Luke Schlosser worked a flawless top of the first on the mound, he reached on a base hit in the home half and advanced to third on wild pitches and stolen bases. He got hung up between third and home on a ground ball back to the pitcher and took off for home running into the catcher on a play at the plate. He was tagged out and, by rule, ejected from the game. The Colts would have to play without their top hitter and their starting pitcher the rest of the way.

“You would be lying if you said Luke Schlosser doesn’t impact the game for us,” Clear Fork coach Gabe Kennedy said. “But it was just an aggressive mistake by him, and he knows it and owned it. So, this is something he is going to grow from. But we also have faith in all our kids to step in and get a job done with a next-man-up mentality. We missed Luke today, but it is like anything in life. You have to play by the rules.”

Amicone echoed Kennedy acknowledging Schlosser meant no ill-will and made a mistake.

“I’ll say this, I’ve had some interaction with Luke Schlosser and there is nothing that I have ever seen where he was a bad person,” Amicone said. “All that was, was a teenage kid making a mistake and it is something he will learn from. Luke is a great kid and it was just a teenage mistake. He will be back and I believe he is one of the best baseball players in the area."

But Amicone also acknowledged his Whippets played a very good ballgame scoring eight runs on eight hits with no defensive errors. Bruskotter had two hits and two RBIs while Landon Kennard had two hits and Nic Eyster, Schwemley, Kamdyn Wheeler and Quinton Albert had one hit apiece and Tanner Hartz and Schwemley had one RBI apiece.

Kennard pitched an absolute gem allowing just one run on six hits with four strikeouts in six innings of work.

“But I don’t want that to take away from what our kids did," Amicone said. "I thought we bunted extremely well and ran the bases strong. Landon threw six very strong innings for us and that is what we need out of our senior ace at this point of the season. I am very proud of that kid for coming in during our biggest game of the year and showing what he can do. Extremely proud of him.”

The Colts did respond with a run in the home half of the fifth when Kaden Riddle's RBI single got them on the board. Shelby proceeded to hang five runs in the top of the seventh with three runs on wild pitches, one on a dropped third strike error and a Hartz sacrifice bunt. Again, the ball hardly left the infield.

Clear Fork (15-3) committed three costly errors allowing three unearned runs.

“There are zero excuses, we simply didn’t make the plays,” Kennedy said. “I have coached with Jon Amicone for many years and you know how he is going to handle a situation so we knew the bunt was coming, but we didn’t make the plays. Credit Shelby. They bunted the ball well in places we weren’t. They made us pay. That stuff just adds up.”

Clear Fork played well offensively with seven hits with two apiece from Jay Jackson, Riddle and Chandler Ball and one from Mason Sansom. Riddle had two RBIs while Jackson had one. Garret Hotz came in relief of Schlosser and pitched well allowing just two earned runs on six hits with two strikeouts in 5 ⅓ innings.

Shelby (11-6) is out of the MOAC title race, but Clear Fork still has a shot of at least a share with two must-win games against Highland next week. The Whippets played a bit of spoiler as a Clear Fork win would have set up a winner-take-all two-game series against Highland in the final week of the regular season. Instead, CF will have to play for a tie.

“It was fun for me because I haven’t been able to play spoiler too much during my high school career,” Bruskotter said. “But it got all of our juices flowing coming in especially after they beat us on Wednesday in a game where we feel we didn’t play our best. We played up to our potential tonight and saw a lot of young guys come along. It was a good win.”

Amicone didn't really have a spoiler mentality coming in, but mostly just wanted to continue a very good rivalry between two storied baseball programs.

“It is always great competition between these two schools historically in baseball and we wanted nothing more than to continue that,” Amicone said. “We want to get better every day, but sure, the spoiler aspect came with this game. They took it to us yesterday and more than anything, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we can play with anybody. I am very proud of the effort.”

Shelby has Huron, two games with Ontario and one with Perkins next week to prepare them for postseason play.

Clear Fork has Lexington, Madison, Highland twice and Fredericktown left on the agenda. Two wins over Highland will get the Colts in position to share a league championship. Kennedy hopes Thursday's loss to Shelby is a positive turning point in the season.

“Shelby was tough last night and tough again tonight and the message after the game was that we aren’t going to hang our heads,” Kennedy said. “We lost today. They beat us. But we have a huge week next week and the tournament after that so this could be a turning point one way or another and we will see what the Colts are made of real soon.”

jfurr@gannett.com

740-244-9934

Twitter: @JakeFurr11

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Shelby Whippets beat Clear Fork Colts in Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference baseball