The old adage of "When it rains it pours", became reality for the Circleville Tigers in the Division 2 State Baseball Semi, Friday at Huntington Park.
In a scoreless tie in the bottom of the third inning, the top-ranked Wapakoneta Redskins opened the scoring floodgates against Circleville starter Jake Mancini, just as mother nature was ready to do likewise in a one hour rain delay.
Wapakoneta loaded the bases with their first three batters in that inning each reaching with bunt-singles. That was followed by VMI commit Don Goodes' RBI single making it 1-0. Goodes came into the game hitting .593 on the season. One out later, Wyatt Moyler stroked a two-run double making it 3-0.
With runners at second and third, the skies opened up and a rain delay held-up play for one hour. When play resumed, Mitch Apple was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Bubba Miller walked to score a run, making it 4-0, then Redskins pitcher Gage Schenk helped his own cause with a sacrifice fly to score a fifth run for a 5-0 lead.
The Redskins added a single run in the fourth inning, making it 6-0.
The Tigers found their only run in the game in the top of the seventh, when Brad Henry led-off with a single, then later scored on an RBI single by Jake Mancini.
That score would hold up as the final at 6-1.
Gage Schenk gets the win, yielding three hits over 7 innings and struck out 10 Tigers batters. Mancini took the loss, giving up five runs on six hits in 3 1/3 innings of work. Andrew Barnhart came on in relief and gave up the sixth run.
Wapakoneta 6/10/1 and left 7 runners on base
Circleville 1/3/0 and left 2 runners on base
Wapakoneta improves to (24-1) and will play for the D-2 State Championship at 7pm, Saturday.
Circleville concludes their season with a (19-11) record and Pickaway County's first-ever appearance in the Baseball Final Four.
All four division state titles on Saturday, can be heard on Easy 1350 WCHI and it's iHeart Radio stream.
Listen to WKKJ's Mike Smith and B. Jay Dailey on the play-by-play call of the state semifinal on our podcast link found below....