Maplewood Richmond Heights baseball didn’t give themselves a chance to win the Class 3 District 4 final against Brentwood, Thursday at Brentwood Park.
The Blue Devils allowed two runs in the third inning, three in the fourth, and seven in the bottom of the sixth, to lose the district final 12-2. MRH beat Brentwood in the two previous finals, in 2014 and 2015.
MRH coach, Jonathan Webb said they were short-handed from “things that happened in the semifinal,” and “guys that have been on the bench, waiting for an opportunity to come through and perform — defensively we didn’t perform today.”
Brentwood coach, Mike Imergoot said his pitching was stronger than MRH’s “because we had two strong pitchers and they only had that one.” Junior, Skylar Sappington pitched the full game for the Eagles.
In MRH’s semifinal against Hancock, sophomore, Drew Curtis went eight innings and struck out 11 — MRH won it in a walk-off. Senior Chris Tronicek started on the mound for the Blue Devils against Brentwood.
“You win with good defense, and good pitching, and timely hitting and they did all three,” Immergoot said. “You’re always going to have errors in a baseball game but we overcame those and played smart — smart baseball and aggressive baseball, and hit the ball very well.”
See game photos at 40 South News Facebook.
Brentwood will play its sectional game at 5 p.m. Monday at Brentwood Park against Clearwater (16-7). Immergoot said it’s Clearwater’s first district win since 2010.
“When you get to sectionals they’re all going to be tough,” he said. “And I can’t throw Sky (Skylar Sappington), so I’ll be pitching probably Mike Mills, and (John) Bishoff will throw too, and we’ll do what we can.”
