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June 20, 2009

Dream Season ends: West Vigo offense can’t overcome early deficit

By Andy Amey

INDIANAPOLIS — There were several innings Saturday evening at Victory Field during which West Vigo was the better Class 3A high school baseball team in the state championship.

But they weren’t the early innings, and top-ranked Andrean used a big early cushion to take a 6-3 win, its second championship in the past five seasons.

“The kids proved they belong here,” coach Steve DeGroote said after the game. “Anybody could’ve won that ballgame.”

The Vikings didn’t score in the top of the first inning, although Cameron Fagg was robbed of a hit by 59er shortstop Ryan Dineen and Tyler Wampler got an infield hit. And Dineen was about to do more damage.

After Andrean leadoff batter Kyle Kovach beat out a dribbler down the first-base line to start the bottom of the first, Dineen lined an opposite-field drive into the left-center gap for an RBI double. He scored the second run of the inning while Wampler was starting a double play.

The Vikings looked to be back in the game in the top of the second, when Aaron Welch and Brodey McCalister got singles and Welch worked his way out of a rundown when he appeared to be picked off second on a missed bunt attempt.

Instead of making the 59ers pay for their failure to make that defensive play, however, the Vikings went down meekly — back-to-back-to-back called third strikes — and a big opportunity had been lost.

Viking pitcher Jordan Pearson worked his way out of a two-out jam in the bottom of the second. He gave up a one-out single and walked the ninth batter in the Andrean order, and after falling behind Kovach 3-and-0 he came back for a huge strikeout. But the Vikings went down in order in the top of the third, although Wampler drove right fielder Thomas Polus almost to the fence with an opposite-field drive.

And the bottom of the third was costly. Dineen’s deep fly to right drifted over a Viking’s head for a triple, and Adam Norton got an RBI single — although Viking catcher Jeremy Lucas then picked Norton off first base. With two out, however, Ken Mahala singled and Mike Pokers hit an opposite-field line drive that hit off the right-field fence, took a sharply angled bounce off one of Victory Field’s corners and got past defenders for an inside-the-park homer.

A five-run deficit looked pretty big, but it seemed to inspire the Vikings. Lucas led off the fourth with a single, Welch got a double when his monster fly ball to center got up in the wind, over the head and off the glove of Kovach, and sacrifice flies by McCalister and Scott West cut the lead to 5-2. Both McCalister and West, as well as Cody Thornton who made the third out, hit deep drives.

Pearson breezed through two innings in a row on the mound, and West Vigo climbed closer in the fifth when Fagg doubled off the third-base bag and scored on a single by Wampler. But a Viking who reached base earlier in the inning had been picked off, and Wampler was thrown out at second when the 59ers cut off the throw home.

“Mistakes of aggression you can put up with,” DeGroote said afterward. “[That aggressiveness] is why we got here.” The coach also wasn’t critical about the second-inning problems.

“That happens in a ballgame,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here if any one player or any one coach was missing from this squad.”

Lucas singled in the top of the sixth and Thornton had a hit in the seventh, but double plays wiped out both. And Andrean got its final run in the bottom of the sixth when Mahala homered to right-center.

The Vikings were disconsolate afterward, particularly about the start that put them in a hole.

“We’ve been waiting too long this year to get runs on the board,” said Wampler, “and today showed it didn’t work out.”

“We left everything out on the field,” said Pearson. “We started getting our momentum, but just a little too late.”

“We’re disappointed,” Welch said. “We didn’t start off very good.”

“We did all we could,” said Fagg. “We played to the best of our abilities.”

“It’s so hard to get here, and it’s awesome [being here],” said DeGroote. “The [West Vigo] players in the past paid the price too, and this team finally got through the door … we believe we can get to this point too now.

“When it’s done, it’s done. But these kids put us here.”

DeGroote’s future as the Viking coach had been a matter of speculation, but he put to rest Saturday any rumors that he might be stepping down.

“That would be giving up on all the kids we’ve had in the past,” he said. “We just want to come back better.”

“Coach is unbelievable,” said Wampler, “I’m so thrilled he’s coming back for my senior year [next spring]. I think we’ll be here again next year, but the work starts today.”

Making the decision easier for DeGroote, if indeed a decision had been involved, was probably the comments he got after Saturday’s game from administrators and officials from around the state who praised the Vikings for the way they played the game and comported themselves.

“I get happy when people respect us,” he said. “That’s all we ask for.”



Andrean 6, West Vigo 3

West Vigo ab r h bi Andrean ab r h bi

Pearson p 3 0 0 0 Kovach cf 3 1 1 0

Fagg 3b 3 1 1 0 Dineen ss 3 2 3 1

Wampler ss 3 0 2 1 Norton p 3 0 1 1

Lucas c 3 1 2 0 Franchetti c 3 0 0 0

Welch 1b 3 1 2 0 Mahala 3b 3 2 2 1

McCalister lf 2 0 1 1 Pokers 2b 3 1 1 2

West 2b 2 0 0 1 Rapacz ;f 3 0 1 0

Thornton rf 3 0 1 0 Ochi dh 3 0 0 0

Aff cf 2 0 0 0 Doolin 1b 0 0 0 0

Polus rf 1 0 0 0

Totals 24 3 9 3 Totals 25 6 9 5

West Vigo 000 210 0 — 3

Andrean 203 001 x — 6

E — West. DP — WV 2, Andrean 2. LOB — WV 3, Andrean 2. 2B — Dineen, Welch, Fagg. 3B — Dineen. HR — Pokers (6), Mahala (10). SB — Kovach. CS — Norton, Aff. SF — McCalister, West.

IP H R ER BB SO

West Vigo

Pearson (L, 13-2) 6 9 6 6 1 5

Andrean

Norton (W, 9-0) 7 9 3 3 1 6

T — 1:59.

Records — Andrean finished 33-2, West Vigo 28-2.

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