What their suddenly burgeoning offense has created is a tournament run few who don’t ride the team bus saw coming. But the 18-9 and seventh-seeded Ross Rams are headed to the Division III regional tournament, bats in hand.
On Saturday afternoon at Bellbrook High School in a district final, the Rams battered Tippecanoe with 12 hits and early run production to coast to a 12-2 walk-off victory in five innings.
The Rams batted .275 this season, which was eighth best in the 12-team Southwestern Buckeye League. There were 10th in the league in runs scored. All the game and practice reps are finally paying off. They’ve defeated Western Brown 14-1 and upset Cincinnati Turpin 6-1 in tournament play.
“We’ve really focused and practiced on good quality at bats,” Ross coach Brad Voegele said. “It’s a mindset. But we practice it every single day before we do anything else. We work on situational hitting on the field, and just work on getting guys on, getting them over and get them in.”
The Rams next test is at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Hayden Field in Oxford against Vandalia Butler, a team that defeated Tipp twice this season in Miami Valley League play.
The Rams scored three runs in the first inning on a two-run single by Gavin Burns and Kerry Snyder’s groundout. In the second, the lead grew to 8-0 on Bryce Fulmer’s RBI double, an error-producing run, a passed ball, a bases-loaded walk and a hit batsman amid two other hits.
The Rams ended the game in the bottom of the fifth when Josiah Lynch singled to left, Griffin Mueller bunted for a hit and Evan Gabbard, who had four RBIs, singled them both in to set off the victory celebration.
“No disrespect to anybody else,” Voegele said. “Our record’s not the same as what other guys’ are. We’re the seven seed – that’s just where we are. But I knew we’d be in a situation to make a run in the tournament because of the way we play defense and pitch.”
Voegele says he has four No. 1 pitchers. He started Snyder against Tipp and was rewarded with a four-hitter. The staff ERA is 2.65, Snyder’s is 1.44 and Nolan Ertel, who will start Tuesday against Butler, boasts a 0.77 ERA.
“I didn’t have my best stuff, the wind was kind of blowing on my face a little bit, but we got out to a great lead early, and I just tried to throw strikes,” Snyder said. “We don’t score a whole lot of runs so far this year, but we jumped on them early and the pressure was off. And I could just go out there and throw strikes, let them hit it, see what happens.”
Tipp (24-4) didn’t take advantage of a few opportunities to score and never found its footing at the plate or on the mound where coach Cam Dickens tried four pitchers.
“It just comes down to the little things,” Dickens said. “Once you get to this level, any small thing, any bobble, any not getting ahead of hitters, not taking the fight on offense, it comes up to bite you. You just got to be willing to go take the game from moment one. And I don’t think we did that today, and they did. Ross absolutely did that.”
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