OHSAA baseball: Grove City edges Watterson, Liberty beats DeSales in district finals
The Grove City baseball team turned to its ace and small ball to win its second consecutive Division I district title.
Junior pitcher Keegan Holmstrom turned in a complete-game effort and the third-seeded Greyhounds beat second-seeded Watterson 4-3 in eight innings Thursday at Upper Arlington.
Grove City (20-10), last year's state runner-up, will play Hilliard Darby in a regional semifinal at 5 p.m. next Thursday on its home field. Olentangy Liberty and Olentangy Orange will meet in the other semifinal at 2 p.m. at Grove City, with the regional final scheduled for 5 p.m. the next day.
District finals: Hilliard Darby beats Gahanna, Olentangy Orange tops Pickerington North
“This is five district titles (since I became coach) and two in a row,” Greyhounds coach Ryan Alexander said. “We started out winning these things in 2011, 2012 and 2014 and I thought we’d win 30 of these and then it got hard for those couple of years.”
With the game tied at 3 in the top of the eighth, Bryant Braxton was hit by a pitch leading off the inning. He moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on Logan Highley’s single to center.
Holmstrom, an Ohio State commit, struck out two in the eighth and stranded a runner to secure the title. He allowed three hits while striking out 11 and walking one on 121 pitches.
“I felt good,” Holmstrom said. “The adrenaline picked up and it’s all good from there. There’s excitement and joy and love for our guys. We work all year. We know we have this (game) on the schedule every year. We’re excited to be here. (We have) another week of practice, so we’re ready for that.”
Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh, Watterson (23-3) tied the game on No. 9 hitter Brandon Trout’s two-out double to left.
Watterson scored a pair of unearned runs in the bottom of the first to take a 2-1 lead.
Grove City tied the game in the fifth on Holmstrom’s sacrifice fly and went ahead 3-2 an inning later when Braxton scored on Connor Hix’s suicide squeeze.
Chance Strausbaugh led Watterson with a double and single. Ryan Mulligan suffered the loss in relief.
“It was a heck of a high school baseball game,” Eagles coach Jeff Boulware said. “There was a lot of emotion, a lot of good talent on the field. Our guys are tough. They could have just given up in the seventh inning. Brandon comes up with a huge two-out double to tie it up. I can’t say enough about our kids. I’m very proud of them.”
Olentangy Liberty 8, DeSales 2
The top-seeded Patriots (28-3) took control early against 22nd-seeded DeSales (14-12), scoring two runs in the bottom of the first and four more in the second en route to their fifth district title. Liberty is pursuing its first state championship since 2018.
Conner Mick and Blake Hajjar had RBI singles in the first, while Mason Onate had a two-run double and Mick added a two-run single in the second for a 6-0 lead.
Liberty closed its scoring in the third on Noah Mathis’ RBI triple and Anderson Gomez’s run-scoring single.
Division II: Lakewood 4, Licking Valley 3
Lakewood’s fairy tale story still has at least one chapter left.
The 10th-seeded Lancers knocked off No. 4 Licking Valley to win a Division II district championship at Beavers Field in Lancaster. They started the postseason at 9-15, and their three-game run through the district tournament included avenging LCL losses to Granville and now the Panthers.
Lakewood plays Hamilton Badin in a regional semifinal next Thursday at Mason.
Peyton Tichenor singled to lead off the seventh inning and later scored the go-ahead run on Kollin Hall’s squeeze bunt. Mason Sprankle then finished off his complete game with a 1-2-3 bottom of the inning.
—Kurt Snyder, Newark Advocate
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Grove City, Olentangy Liberty win OHSAA baseball district titles
