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CAMERON – An opportunistic Madonna team came ready to play Thursday. The Blue Dons had their hitting shoes laced tight early on, took advantage of a dozen base-on-balls, received a stellar pitching performance and played outstanding defense in rolling past Cameron, 10-1, in Game 2 of the best-of-3 W.Va. Class A Region I series to punch their ticket to Charleston next week.
Madonna (26-4) will play in the Class A state tournament next Thursday at GoMart Ballpark against a yet-to-be-determined opponent. It defeated the Dragons (20-14) 8-5 in Game 1 on Wednesday and have now beaten them four times this season in as many meetings.
“We knew Kason could bring it. He is a very good pitcher and a really nice kid,” Madonna head coach T.J. Miller said of Cameron’s ace pitcher. “We had certain approaches (at the plate) coming in today and these guys executed them to perfection. We jumped on them early and that’s what we needed to do.
“It was a goal of ours to get to Charleston, but we’re not going to be satisfied until we win the state title,” Miller noted. “This group is really focused on doing just that. These guys won’t be happy until we hold up the state championship trophy.”
The top-seeded Blue Dons scored five times in the top of the first as they sent 11 batters to the plate against Angel, who labored with 50 pitches in the opening frame. After walking leadoff batter Jacob Lazear to start the game, Angel served up back-to-back-to-back RBI doubles off the bats of Koleton Grishkevich, winning pitcher David Connors and Matthew Geer. Kaiden Wells followed with an RBI single and Reed Wilharm walked with the bases loaded to force in the fifth tally.
“David was phenomenal today and we made a lot of great (defensive) plays behind him,” Miller added. “We put it all together today against a really good Cameron team. I’m so proud of these kids and my (coaching) staff.”
Angel settled down and worked into the fourth, but the damage had already been done. He finished with seven strikeouts, a like number of walks and 103 pitches thrown, of which just 53 were strikes.
“We wanted to be patient at the plate,” Miller said of drawing 12 walks.
Miller said the win was a bit sweeter because Cameron knocked Madonna out of last year’s section tournament before the Dragons were ousted by Wheeling Central.
“We have nothing but respect for Cameron because we know they can play,” Miller said after his team improved to 4-0 this season against the Dragons. Coach Angel does a great job with the kids.
Connors, who scattered four shingles in his complete-game effort, belted a two-run homer to deep left-center in the fourth to make it 7-0. The Blue Dons tacked on three in the seventh, two coming on a Matthew Geer single. The third scored via an error, one of four committed by the Dragons.
“They set the tone in the very first inning. It seemed like everything went their way early on and we couldn’t buy a break,” Cameron head coach Adam Angel said. “Every hard hit ball we had seemed like it was right at them. It was just one of those days, and you’ll have those over the course of a baseball season. It’s just a shame it had to happen today, but give Madonna credit. That’s a really good baseball team.”
Connors needed just 95 offerings in his gem. He threw 61 strikes and got ahead of the 27 Cameron hitters with 20 first-pitch strikes. He induced 12 ground ball outs, struck out three, recorded a trio of flyouts, two line drive outs and a popout. He walked three and hit one.
“We have four guys that we’ve been using a ton this year on the mound. David can really throw it,” Miller praised. “He’s definitely one of our aces.”
Brody Smith singled twice for Cameron. Angel singled in the lone run in the sixth.
W.Va. Class A Region I
Championship Game
Madonna 10, Cameron 1
Mad 500 200 3 – 10 9 0
Cam 000 001 0 – 1 4 4
M-Connors wp (3K, 3BB) and Wells; Lazear rbi; Grishkevich S, D, rbi; Connors D, HR, 3rbi; Geer 2S, D, 3rbi; Wilharm rbi
C-Angel lp (7K, 7BB), Starcher (4), (1K, 5BB) and Bellance; Smith 2S; Angel S, rbi
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