Loudonville makes timely plays in baseball win over Mapleton

LOUDONVILLE — Mapleton’s baseball team played aggressively Thursday evening when it traveled to Loudonville to play an ever-improving Redbirds team.

The aggressive style helped the Mounties have several solid at-bats at the plate but also came back to haunt them as they had two players thrown out at the plate in the third inning, and that loomed large in a 4-3 Loudonville win.

“That was a good game,” said Mapleton coach Aaron Welch. “The kids played hard but we may have been a little too aggressive on the bases. I sure would like to have both of those plays back in that inning.”

Both starting pitchers have fine outings

Starting pitchers Judah Layton of Loudonville and Cole Vermilya of Mapleton each had a solid performance after surviving a rough first inning.

Layton walked Blake Benner to open the game and Benner scored on Luke Pryor’s RBI single for a quick 1-0 lead.

Vermilya danced out of trouble in the bottom of the inning after issuing three straight walks to load the bases with nobody out and the ‘Birds threatening to blow the game open early.

But Vermilya quickly found his grove and allowed just an RBI groundout to Matt Sprang and a sacrifice fly to Boe Weiser for a 2-1 Redbirds lead.

“Cole threw a great game,” said Welch. “He did really well keeping them off balance. He did what he needed to do for us.”

With both pitchers putting zeros on the scoreboard, the two Mapleton runners thrown out at the plate in that fateful third inning ultimately were the difference in the one-run game.

“I like being aggressive,” Welch said. “But if I could take those back, I would hold up both runners on those two plays.”

“We really did kind of squeak one out here,” Loudonville coach Matt Rucki said. “We’ve had some issues hitting with runners in scoring position. But tonight we drew some walks and did just enough to put pressure on their pitchers to throw strikes. It all worked out for us tonight.

“Of course we’d like to get more base hits in those situations, but we will take what we can get.”

Mapleton tallied single runs in the fifth and sixth innings and take a 3-2 lead, but Loudonville came right back in the bottom of the sixth when Sprang’s sacrifice fly knotted the score and Peyton Regan’s bases-loaded walk gave the ‘Birds the 4-3 lead.

Mapleton got the potential tying run to second base with one out in the seventh before Dillon Wade ended the game with a strikeout.

Zach Wrobleski and Vermilya each had two singles for Mapleton, and Layton rapped a double in the key sixth inning for Loudonville.

Fundamentals pay dividends in Redbirds victory

Rucki said the work done in practice on game situations allowed the Loudonville defense to shine when the game was on the line.

“We practice those things a lot, and they may seem like small things and guys probably get sick of practicing them but, you know, it probably won us this game tonight," he said. "Being able to execute not only the cutoffs, but also the pick-off moves, they make a big difference.”

Layton went five innings and scattered seven hits with three strikeouts, and said the defense behind him was a huge key.

“I haven’t pitched that much in any of my high school career,” explained the sophomore. “This was actually my first start this year. But being out there and having my teammates making plays behind me and them having confidence in me was a big thing for me.

"All the work in both the offseason and in practices is paying off for us. You can see it in this team. This is night and day from last year to this year.”

“Making those plays we can now tell the guys that this is why we do this,” Rucki said. “That is our third win this season by one run, and these games we would have lost last year.

“We came back this year with a lot of experience and we are counting on them to come through in these type of tight situations. We tell them to celebrate these, but we also expect success. I am just really proud of these guys tonight.”

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Loudonville makes timely plays in baseball win over Mapleton