Their fourth straight victory started pool play off right for the Emporia Post 5 AAAs in Friday’s opening action of the Mike’s Classic. But in their second game, about the only positive the AAAs could take away was that they were only struck by lightning figuratively, rather than literally.
With lightning flickering in the clouds looming around the perimeter of Soden’s Grove on Friday night, the Ottawa AA squad supplied the thunder, banging out 14 hits and taking advantage of Emporia errors to beat the AAAs 13-1 in four innings.
The loss to the fearsome Ottawa squad — which beat its two Friday opponents by a combined score of 22-2 — gave the AAAs a 1-1 pool-play mark and set them up to face the Emporia A-16 Blue squad at 9 a.m. today to begin bracket play.
“That first game, I thought we competed pretty well, and we were able to come away with a win,” AAAs coach Brad Kelly said of Emporia’s 5-4 extra-inning win over Andover. “And then the second game — (Ottawa) beat us pretty bad the first time we played ’em, and I think that kind of carried over into tonight, really. I think our guys — I don’t know if they didn’t feel like we had a chance, but it didn’t really seem like we were too motivated to get going right off the bat.”
From top to bottom, Ottawa’s lineup made life rough for both AAAs starting pitcher Sean Carr and Adam Ewy, who relieved Carr after just seven batters and 2/3 of an inning. Every Ottawa starter but one had at least one hit, and the AA team banged out four doubles. Four runs, five hits and two AAA errors set the tone in the first inning, and Ottawa added five more in the third and four in the fourth. Leadoff man Blake Firestone doubled, singled twice and drove in two runs, and Blake Hiatt followed him in the order with an identical output. Each scored three runs, and Spencer Hawkins and Devin Martin each had two hits and scored twice.
Firestone, meanwhile, handled the AAAs on the mound, allowing just two hits and, during one stretch, striking out four out of five hitters. Emporia got its only run in its final time up, when Ryne Cook led off with a double, advanced on a groundout and then scored on a wild pitch. Henry Ott’s single in the second inning was the AAAs’ other hit.
After taking over for Carr, Ewy stayed on the mound and took one for the team, getting hit hard over the final two innings.
“It’s just one of those things where we wanted to save some of our pitchers for the bracket play starting (today),” Kelly said. “But that’s no excuse. We still expect our guys to come in and throw strikes and compete, and they hit the ball well. Credit Ottawa — they hit the ball all over the park, and our pitchers walked guys, and we hit a couple of guys, and it wasn’t a very good defensive effort, either.”
The victory over Andover came in eight innings. With Carr on third and two outs in the bottom of the eighth, Michael Knight hit a dribbler to the third baseman, and Carr scored when the throw to first hit the dirt and got away.
Zach Shuler went all eight innings to get the win. Ewy went 2-for-3 with two walks and scored two runs. Knight also had two hits, and Travis LeMay and Harrison Stone each had a double.
“When our main guys are pitching, I think we play pretty well,” Kelly said. “It’s just getting the bats going. Like I said, we had some opportunities earlier in the game to score some runs and maybe not go into extra innings. But it is what it is, and our guys competed pretty hard, and we were able to squeak that one out.”
Winning that first game gave the AAAs the No. 2 spot out of the Gold bracket to set up their matchup with the Blues this morning under the tournament’s modified bracket. A 3:45 p.m. semifinal game against Olathe South will await the winner; the loser will have a 6 p.m. game for fifth place.