Firestone rallies to top Ellet in City Series baseball postseason championship
Firestone was down to its final out Wednesday at Canal Park in the City Series postseason baseball championship against Ellet senior ace Cameron Allen.
Trailing by two runs, a victory didn’t seem likely for Firestone as the hard-throwing Allen stood on the mound with 15 strikeouts.
Firestone sophomore Malcolm Bufford stepped into the batter’s box and lined a single to center field.
“It was very nerve-wracking, especially not being as experienced,” Bufford said of the at-bat. “I just really let my body take over and I went right after that ball.”
Ellet senior Chase Merring relieved Allen, who was over 100 pitches, but Firestone wasn’t quite done.
Junior Nick Cribbet and senior John Grass walked, and junior C.J. Heller followed with a three-run double to right-center field to give the Falcons a 6-5 lead.
The Falcons' Lucas Cody, a 6-foot-4, 160-pound senior pitcher, then worked around two Ellet (11-9) baserunners in the bottom of the inning to give Firestone (7-11) a dramatic one-run win. Ellet beat Firestone twice in the regular season.
“This comeback was the summarization of all of the energy we had before the game, during the game and after the game,” Heller said. “I knew at some point we were going to break out.”
The game featured 11 runs, 14 hits, a balk, a batter being accidentally hit in the helmet (Cribbet is OK), close calls on the bases, close pitches around the plate called balls, seven errors and a few more mental miscues.
“Lucas Cody pitched the game of his life,” Firestone coach Jeff Sloan said. “He filled up the strike zone [with 76 strikes on 116 pitches]. We have been asking him not to nibble, and he came at them and that really was a big difference. We had to fight through the [guys] who dropped balls in the outfield and things that we wouldn’t expect.
“C.J. Heller couldn’t catch today. He was in the lineup to be our catcher and he came to me [in the pregame] and said his arm hurt, so we had to change the entire lineup. We found out he is a better hitter when he is just a DH.”
Sloan smiled and laughed as he finished his comment.
“This was a tremendous job by our players,” Sloan said. “Our catcher, [sophomore] Brennen Hostler, had to fill in there, and he did a great job. He has started in five or six different positions this year.
“... The last few games we have had energy. We have not had a winning season, but the last couple of games we have battled, and they did the same thing today. The guys on the bench have been tremendous.”
Akron baseball coverage in 2023: Ellet High School senior Cameron Allen is "something special" on the mound
Ellet's Cameron Allen, Firestone's Lucas Cody pitch in memorable game
Allen allowed four hits and four runs, two of them earned. Cody finished with nine strikeouts and allowed nine hits and five runs, three earned.
“This was the best game that I have ever pitched,” Cody said. “The team played amazing, even with the errors. We have a young team and guys are still learning. We scored all of our runs in the last three innings. We can learn from this that we can work hard and come back from any deficit.”
Cody said Allen had “a heck of a game” and Sloan agreed.
“He is going to be a tremendous college pitcher [at Wright State],” Sloan said of Allen. “I tip my hat. He did exactly what we thought he was going to do, and that is throw strike after strike after strike.”
C.J. Heller, Malcolm Bufford lead Firestone offense with clutch hits
Heller finished with two doubles and two walks and Bufford had two singles and two runs. Falcons junior Simon Hostler hit an RBI double and Brennen Hostler worked a bases-loaded walk.
Ellet’s leaders offensively were seniors Trevor Ingham (two singles, run), Duane Brown (two singles, RBI, run), Adam Zupancic (single, RBI) and T.J. Brown (double, RBI, run).
“I have had some tough losses,” Ellet coach John Sarver said. “I lost in a state championship game. I lost in a district final. Sometimes, there are decisions that I have made that could have been done better or I trusted certain things to happen and they didn’t happen. No matter what we did as a team at Ellet, I do not want to take anything away from Firestone because they played their hearts out. They hung in there and they did what they had to do.
“I made a change in pitching because I believe in both of those kids. I believe in Cameron at over 100 pitches, but I also believe in a guy like Chase coming in with a fresh arm that needs to get one out. Yeah, we made some errors, we made some mistakes and we made some blunders. There are things we would change in the field and at bat, but what Firestone did was awesome for them.”
Michael Beaven can be reached by email at mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com and is on Twitter at @MBeavenABJ.
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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Firestone wins City Series baseball postseason championship
