UNION CITY – Springfield Catholic Central played much better Monday night than the three wins on its résumé indicated as the Fighting Irish beat Mississinawa Valley 10-0 in the Ohio High School Athletic Association tournament.
“I thought they were a pretty good team myself,” Mississinawa Valley baseball coach Max Guillozet said. “They looked a lot better to me than a team that’s won three games all year from what I’ve seen.
“It’s hard for me when you look at a team like that and you think they’ve only won three games. Their coach tells me they play in a tough conference.”
Mississinawa Valley was the seeded better than Catholic Central in the OHSAA tournament but played from behind all night in Monday’s sectional tournament opener.
Dominic DeWitt led off the game for the Irish with a double and scored on a two-run home run by Deece Catanzaro, putting Catholic Central up 2-0.
Catholic Central added to its lead in the third inning with three more runs.
DeWitt singled, Mathis Amidon walked and Deece Catanzaro singled to load the bases with none out. Cossy Catanzaro then singled, bringing in two runs and prompting Mississinawa Valley to bring Trent Collins in to replace Kyler Guillozet on the mound.
After a wild pitch advanced Deece Catanzaro to third, he scored on a suicide squeeze bunt by Sean Alexander to increase the Catholic Central lead to 5-0 through two-and-a-half innings.
Mississinawa Valley had trouble hitting Deece Catanzaro the first time through the lineup. In the first three innings the Catholic Central pitcher struck out seven while limiting MV to a single runner – Zac Longfellow, who reached on an error in the first inning.
“In my opinion that was one of the best pitchers we’ve seen all year,” Coach Guillozet said. “That kid threw well. He had a lot of pop in his fastball, and he had a good breaking ball.”
Mississinawa Valley started to get its offense going the second time through the lineup. After stranding two runners in the fourth inning, the Blackhawks had the bases loaded with one out in the fifth. However, a lineout to short turned into a double play and ended MV’s best scoring threat of the night.
“It’s hard for us to catch a break,” Coach Guillozet said. “Bases loaded, one out, you know we hit a rocket to the short stop and get doubled up at second base. It’s just kind of our luck this year.”
Catholic Central got its offense going again in the sixth inning.
After Amidon was hit by a pitch and Deece Catanzaro singled, Cossy Catanzaro hit a two-RBI double into center to increase the Irish advantage to 7-0.
Alexander singled to put runners on the corners and took second, setting up a two-RBI single by Connor Impson to make it 9-0 in favor of Catholic Central.
The game’s final run came in the seventh inning.
Deece Catanzaro drew a two-out walk, Cossy Catanzaro singled, Dylan Castle walked and Dominic Garrity was hit by a pitch to bring in a run, making it 10-0.
For the game Mississinawa Valley had six hits and one error while Catholic Central had 13 hits and two errors.
Kyler Guillozet went 2-for-3 for Mississinawa Valley. Daniel Wogoman was 1-for-3 and stole a base. Cody Dirksen and Andrew Johns both went 1-for-3. Zac Longfellow was 1-for-4.
Kyler Guillozet pitched two innings, allowing five earned runs on five hits, one walk and one strikeout. Collins pitched 3 1/3 innings and allowed four earned runs on seven hits, four walks and three strikeouts.
Cameron Shimp went 1 1/3 innings on the mound, allowing one earned run on one hit and two walks. Johns pitched 1/3 of an inning and retired the only batter he faced.
Mississinawa Valley will play in the Dylan Williams Memorial Wood Bat Invitational on Saturday in Union City, Indiana, to complete the season. With such a young team, Coach Guillozet seems a promising future for the Blackhawks.
“It’s a good group of kids, and we’re young,” he said. “We’re going to graduate one senior, and that’s it. We play with a lot of freshmen and sophomores in key spots. I’ll miss Andrew next year, our senior. He plays first base, and he pitches a little bit, three hole hitter, has had a good year at the plate, and we’ll miss him at first base because he does make a lot of plays over there sometimes making our infield look good.
“We’ve got a lot to look forward to with the youth that we have on this team. We’re not losing really any pitching this year.