Plymouth takes sectional title
By Dee Grenert
PLYMOUTH � Plymouth baseball coach Tony Plothow admits he�s not sure how much value huddling for a team pep session has during a game.
After watching his Pilgrims congregate during the fifth inning and then erase a three-run deficit on their way to a 10-4 Class 3A sectional-title game win over Kankakee Valley Saturday night at Bill Nixon Field, the Plymouth boss might want to think about changing his tune.
The Pilgrims host ???? in regional play next Saturday at Bill Nixon Field at ?????
�Our seniors got together after the fifth inning and said it wasn�t over,� Plothow explained. �I don�t know how much that helps, but we scored four runs and got the lead.
�These seniors have surprised me so many times,� Plothow added. �It�s nice to get to be around them at least another week.�
The key senior for Plymouth (25-5) was winning pitcher Eric Teall who gave up four runs � just one earned � on seven hits, fanned 11 and walked two. The tough righthander helped his own cause with two doubles, including a game-tying, two-run two-bagger in the fifth. Junior designated hitter Josh Dietz put the game out of reach with a majestic sixth-inning grand slam.
Teall�s one mistake turned into a three-run homer by Kankakee Valley cleanup man Jonathan Stamper that put the Kougars (21-10) up 3-1 in the third. Andy Bulla collected a fifth-inning sacrifice fly to give Kankakee Valley a 4-1 advantage.
�Eric Teall battled,� Plothow said. �He made, what for him, was a bad pitch, but he stayed with it. He hung right with it and only gave up one earned run. He was in a similar situation earlier this year at Warsaw. He gave up a three-run homer. We told him he�d be pitching some big games. He won the conference championship game and then tonight. I think he learned something from that Warsaw game.�
Plymouth, which had taken decent swings against Kougar starter Jeff Hamstra throughout the night, finally found some holes in the fifth.
Blake Ruff, Derek Birchmeier and Charley Craig laced three straight singles to load the bases with no outs. Zach Scott�s sac fly made it a 4-2 game. Teall followed with a long game-tying double to center that chased Hamstra.
�(Hamstra) was getting the ball up a little bit,� Kankakee Valley coach Doug Greenlee explained. �He usually throws a lot of groundballs, but he didn�t tonight.�
Three batters later, reliever Clint Walden appeared to have the Kougars out of the inning. But an error on a grounder from Adam Foust, whose RBI single plated the game�s first tally, allowed Teall to score the go-ahead run for a 5-4 Plymouth lead.
Scott�s bloop single to right gave the Pilgrims a 6-4 lead in the sixth, but Dietz furnished the big shot. The tall, right-handed Plymouth DH unloaded on Dan Pilarczyk�s 3-1 fastball with a shot that would have made Sammy Sosa proud. Dietz�s bases-loaded bomb cleared the left-center field wall and traveled deep into the night.
�What a pressure reliever,� a relieved Plothow said of Dietz�s blast. �(Pilarczyk) had just walked a kid and now it�s 3-1. I knew he was going to get it across the plate. I just didn�t want Josh to get cheated.�
Seniors Craig and Scott both added two base knocks to the Pilgrims� 10-hit attack. Scott, Birchmeier, another senior, and Ruff, a junior, all scored twice for Plymouth.
�Plymouth�s an explosive team,� Greenlee said. �The credit goes to them. They were more aggressive than I�d seen when I scouted them. They took a lot of pitches when I saw them, but they swung a lot earlier in the count tonight.�
Linescore
Kankakee Valley: 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 � 4 7 2
Plymouth: 1 0 0 0 4 5 X ��10 10 1
KV: Jeff Hamstra (L), Clint Walden (5), Joe Myers (6), Dan Pilarczyk (6) and Andy Bulla. P: Eric Teall (W) and Blake Ruff.
2B: Andy Bulla (KV), Eric Teall 2 (P).
HR: Josh Dietz (P).
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