DUBOIS — Otto-Eldred head coach Jame Thomas wasn’t sure if it was nerves or butterflies or something else.
But whatever it was, he hadn’t seen it from his team all season — until Wednesday’s District 9 Class A title game.
The second-seeded Terrors committed four errors and threw seven walks in a five-inning, 12-2 loss to fifth-seed Elk County Catholic at Showers Field in DuBois.
The game, originally scheduled for Tuesday but postponed due to a lighting issue, had a nearly two-hour rain delay on Wednesday.
But that delay was really the only thing that could slow down the Crusaders’ march to a D-9 plaque, as ECC jumped out to an 8-0 lead after two innings and cruised from there.
“It feels awesome,” Elk County Catholic head coach James Slay said. “To have that title is just phenomenal. I feel like a proud papa just to see them grow through this whole season where there was a little bit of concern about their abilities and they were doubting themselves. But I knew they had it.”
For Otto-Eldred, it’ll be forced to lament on some costly mistakes and plays it surely would like to have back.
The Terrors committed two errors in the top of the first that led to two ECC runs scoring to open the game. Then, in the bottom half of that inning, O-E got its first two runners on base via base hits and later loaded the bases, but came away scoreless.
“I don’t have any words for that,” Thomas said in describing some of the game’s early blunders. “We work on that all the time, and we just get to this game here and I don’t know if it was butterflies or nerves or what but you get to this point and you just can’t have errors and walks.”
In the second inning, Elk Catholic showed off its talent. The Crusaders struck for four runs to start the inning off several hard hit balls as well as three walks at the plate.
Then, the skies opened up.
With the bases loaded and two outs, umpires sent both teams back to the dugout to let the storm pass.
The storm had other ideas, however, pausing the game for nearly two hours.
In Thomas’ view, it was a perfect chance for his team to catch its breath and try to put the first 1.2 innings behind them.
“Going into the rain delay, I felt it was our chance to jump back and regroup,” he said. “We went out and scored a couple and I thought maybe that’d be the start of it, but it wasn’t to be.”
On the very first pitch coming out of the delay, ECC’s Alec Wehler successfully stole home to make it 8-0.
“Thank goodness we brought a lot of food; the boys were getting hungry,” Slay joked.
“We had a plan coming out (with the steal) and it wouldn’t be expected, so that was by design.”
Otto-Eldred starting pitcher Chase Sebastian was able to record just three outs in the game before getting pulled for his brother, Cole, with runners on early in the second inning.
Cole Sebastian allowed six runs on five hits and four walks before getting pulled in the third.
Reliever Jake Merry worked 2.1 solid innings of relief for O-E, allowing just one run on three hits, to at least give his team a chance to mount a comeback.
With a comfortable lead, the Crusaders leaned on starting pitcher Hunter Cashmer to protect it.
ECC’s ace, who had a complete game, 11-strikeout performance against O-E earlier this season, wasn’t as successful this time around, but worked his way out of almost every jam.
The only blip on his performance was a two-run third inning from the Terrors. Chris Connelly and Cam Magee each had RBI in that frame for O-E.
“Hunter Cashmer is phenomenal,” Slay said. “He’s strong as an ox, and he can go the distance. With the rain delays and stuff, it just threw him off in his rhythm. I knew that he had the last inning in him (the fourth) and I wanted to have him work through that.”
Brady Schneider worked a scoreless fifth inning to end the game via the 10-run rule.
The Crusaders had hits up and down their lineup, with Alec Wehler leading the team with a 3-for-4, two RBI, four run game from the three-hole.
Isaac Brock, batting seventh, had two hits — including ECC’s only extra-base hit with a double.
“Finally in the last two weeks, I don’t know what happened but they started to believe and I’m just excited to see how this has gone,” Slay said. “It’s been a wonderful journey so far and we’ve still got some more baseball to play. What’s better than that?”
Otto-Eldred, which won 11 of its 15 regular season contests by eight runs or more, have suffered its two most lopsided losses of the year to the Crusaders after ECC topped them 8-1 in early May.
The 12 runs allowed Wednesday were also the most Otto-Eldred has given up all season.
Both teams are back on the diamond Monday afternoon. Elk County Catholic earns a date with the third place team from District 7, while Otto-Eldred will face D-10 champion West Middlesex. Times and locations of the games will be announced Friday.
AT DUBOIS
R H E
ECC 263 01X X 12 10 1
O-E 002 00X X 2 6 4
Hunter Cashmer (4 SO, 2 BB), Brady Schneider (5) (1 SO), and Brennen Klawuhn
Chase Sebastian (1 BB), Cole Sebastian (2) (1 SO, 4 BB), Jake Merry (3) (2 SO, 2 BB), and Chris Connelly
