BOWLING GREEN — Thirty-six minutes after the Anthony Wayne softball team beat Springfield in Clyde to advance to the state semifinals, the AW baseball team completed a thrilling 6-5 comeback to defeat the Blue Devils in extra innings of the Division I district championship game at Carter Park.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, senior designated hitter Tommy Ling came to the plate with a scenario that every young boy plays out in the backyard: tie game, winning run on base, season on the line.
With a swing of the bat and a screaming liner just out of the left fielder’s reach, Ling sent Cody Keller to home plate and the Generals to the regional semifinals, creating an image where elation and dejection were mere feet apart on the base paths.
“As a teacher and a coach, there’s nothing more exhilarating than seeing a young person genuinely excited,” AW coach Ryan Donley said. “You had 23 kids come flying out of the dugout with pure joy and excitement.”
Across the way was despair, tears, and a feeling that one got away. Springfield was attempting to win its first district championship in program history. Instead, the Blue Devils will face the what-ifs from being one out away from advancing.
“To be right there against a team of their caliber, it sucks. It’s a tough one to swallow,” Springfield coach Dave Whitmire said. “It would have been nice to make the first regional appearance in school history. That was these guys’ goal. It’s always tough to be in your last huddle with your seniors.”
Springfield (14-14) entered the bottom of the seventh inning with a 5-3 lead and a district title within its grasp. The impact of a leadoff walk was lessened when the Blue Devils got a strikeout for the first out. Jack Behnfeldt followed with a fielder’s choice that brought the potential winning run to the plate.
After a walk, Ling stepped to the plate and clubbed a sacrifice fly to the outfield. When it left the bat, many in attendance thought the game could be over. But a wild pitch of all things tied the game, with Springfield getting out of the inning on a flyout.
If the Blue Devils were plagued by anything — they led 3-0 after the top of the first and 5-3 after four — it was a series of errors, wild pitches, and misplayed balls in the field that changed the tenor of the game.
“Our defense has been good all year. That’s what got us here,” Whitmire said. “We’re not the most prolific hitting team. We got here with a .240 team batting average but a .957 fielding percentage. In 28 games, that’s pretty darn good in high school baseball.
“It’s the old cliche in baseball, you can’t give a team four outs or five outs. And we did that, unfortunately.”
Early, it looked like the nerves were going against AW (24-4) as multiple Springfield batters were hit and walked in the first inning, allowing the Blue Devils to build a 3-0 lead before the Generals even had an at-bat.
Springfield scored three in the first, one in the third, and one in the fourth. AW scored two in the first and one in the second to tie it, as the game seemed to tilt back in the Generals’ favor. But they could only muster three total hits over the next four innings.
“Quite frankly, I believe they outplayed us today,” Donley said. “We had a couple more timely hits and we took advantage of some situations. But that’s a really good ballclub. My hat goes off to them for the gutsy performance they put together.”
AW plays St. John’s Jesuit in the regional semifinal at 5 p.m. Thursday at BGSU’s Warren Steller Field. The Titans gave AW one of its four losses way back on April 6, 4-1.
As the third out of each inning came, the opportunities to extend the season were becoming less frequent for the Generals. Behnfeldt was offering words of encouragement to his teammates each time they walked back to the dugout.
The mood was subdued but not doom and gloom. AW scored two runs in the seventh inning to beat Springfield earlier this season and three in the seventh to beat Southview.
“There isn’t a whole lot of panic,” Donley said. “We had a little talk before the bottom of the eighth and said, It’s not like we haven’t been here before. We just have to put guys on and put good at-bats together and see what happens.”
What happened was Ling made a lifetime memory.
“I saw the ball good all day,” he said. “My goal was just to put it in play and see what happens, give it a chance. [My adrenaline] was kicking pretty hard.”
First Published May 27, 2023, 2:31 a.m.
