HOPING TO CELEBRATE AGAIN — Indian Creek’s baseball team celebrates with the trophy after winning the district championship game last week. The Redskins play in the regional semis today at Harrison Central’s Mazeroski Field. – Andrew Grimm
The baseball season is coming to its climax in the Buckeye State, and while most squads are watching from the bleachers, the Ohio Valley still has a trio of teams duking it out- including two set to face one another.
The OHSAA Regional Semifinals are set to take place today, pitting a field of the final 16 teams in each of Ohio’s four divisions against each other in the first of four remaining tournament rounds- with whoever goes 4-0 claiming the state championship at the end of the road.
In the Division II Regional Semis, St. Clairsville and Indian Creek will face one another Thursday on neutral ground, playing at Mazeroski Field in Cadiz. In Division III, Barnesville will face Minford on Thursday in a neutral site game at Ohio Dominican University’s Panther Field.
When St. Clairsville and Indian Creek play, it’ll be the fourth meeting between the two teams this season. The Red Devils have taken each of the previous three games, including a 9-4 victory in the OVAC 4A championship at the start of May.
“St. Clairsville and Indian Creek are very familiar with each other,” Creek head coach Mike Cottis said. “We have played each other the last two years in the OVAC Finals, we’ve had some real good battles. Coach Sliva obviously does a fantastic job with them and they are very veteran. They have a lot of seniors and they’re all good players, one through nine they’re tough.”
St. C. head coach Tom Sliva reciprocated the respect between the two familiar foes.
“My impressions are that they’re probably the best team on our schedule,” Sliva said. “They’ve got strong arms at all nine positions, they’ve got four guys that can really throw it from the mound and they’ve got one of the best catchers in the valley. They’re well-coached by a staff that has been together for many years. We’re very impressed by Indian Creek, and they really swing it.”
St. Clairsville had four players named to the All-Eastern District team, released Monday, with all four on the first team- Braylen Blomquist, Marcus Bush, Hunter Hoffman and Brody Saunders.
Indian Creek had three earn the honors- Sal Barcalow and Landon Pownall on the first team, and Sylus Hyde on the second team.
For St. Clairsville, their recipe for success has remained the same all year. For Indian Creek, it’s been a turnaround at the plate which has powered their surge into the postseason.
“The recipe is kind of the recipe for everyone else,” St. C.’s Sliva said. “Pitchers throw strikes, put a good defense behind them and put the ball in play on offense. I think we’ve been fortunate to do that against quality teams and quality pitchers. None of the games have been easy at all, but we’ve been up for the challenge and we’ve got another one on Thursday.”
“The biggest change in this team from the beginning of the season to now, we really struggled with timely hitting in some of our big games earlier in the year,” Creek’s Cottis said. “Lately we’ve been doing a much better job whether it’s a guy on second with two outs or a guy on third with less than two outs we’ve been doing a much better job of situational hitting and cashing in on our opportunities. That was a huge weakness earlier in the year.”
Thursday will be history in the making for Indian Creek one way or the other, as Cottis’ squad will be making their first regional tournament appearance in school history. They had lost in the district championship seven times before this season.
Cottis says it’s been a unique group which has led the program to unprecedented territory.
“These guys, they are just a really tight group,” Cottis said. “This is a group, they get up at five in the morning, they meet at the weight room and get their workouts in together as a team. In the offseason training sessions, just things like that, all the hard work in the offseason and during the season, this is one of the hardest-working groups I’ve ever been around. It’s really a testament- we have two seniors who are tremendous leaders, our junior class is so into it. They’ve bought into everything we’ve been trying to do, they’re like a big family.”
The Red Devils are not as unacquainted with Thursday’s stage- they last made it to the regional semifinals four years ago, when the current senior class of Blomquist, Bush, Hoffman, Mason Myers and Caleb Keenan were freshmen. They made it to the regional finals that year.
“We understand that it’s not easy, it’s obviously not given,” Sliva said. “It’s part of our goal, it’s something that we’re trying to attain every year. We want to get to this round and then try to get better and continue on.”
“We talk about staying hungry, and hopefully they do. A lot of these guys have put a lot of work and time into it. They want to make the most of it.”
In the Division III state title hunt is the Barnesville Shamrocks, who find themselves in a rematch of the regional championship game back in the 2020-21 season.
Barnesville head coach DJ Butler said that Minford will be a “challenge,” and that they are a school with a “strong tradition.”
Barnesville beat Minford in that 2021 clash, 10-7, before losing in the state semifinals to
Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy.
Though the seniors on this year’s team, freshmen in 2020-21, have made it all the way to the state semis, the Shamrocks are taking nothing for granted.
“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Butler said of making it to the regional semifinals. “We believe our district is a really good district and anytime you come out of it, it’s a huge accomplishment.”
Barnesville placed two on the All-Eastern District DIII teams released Monday, Reese Stephen and Jaxon Wiley named to the first team while Max Miller and Caleb Powell are second-teamers.
The ‘Rocks have their stars, though Butler says contributions from up and down the lineup are responsible for Barnesville being where they are.
“Guts, determination, different guys have stepped up,” Butler said. “As we got later into the year and through this tournament run, it seems like every guy does something every night to help us get in the win column.”
“Our pitching has been great all year. It’s been really solid. Defensively we’ve improved throughout the course of the year. We’ve been a very streaky hitting team- we’ve had games where we put up 12 hits, we’ve won games with four hits just by pitching and defense.”
Minford is riding a high going into Thursday’s game, having taken down Wheelersburg, the state’s top-ranked team in Division III, and a team that had beaten Minford twice during the regular season, 3-1 for the district title. It is Minford’s fifth district championship in six years.
Whoever triumphs on Thursday will play in the regional championship on Friday, followed by the state semifinals and state championship the following weekend.