Hilltoppers baseball tames Bulldogs for district bid

“We definitely game planned a lot,” said Coach Brian Long. “Canton McKinley is a really good ball club and plays a really difficult schedule. We knew that we had our hands full and we really executed all three parts of the game the right way. We had some great pitching, some great timely hitting and our defense really played a pretty solid game as well.”

If the Hilltoppers (18-9, 7-3) defeat Akron Archbishop Hoban in the district semifinal on Tuesday, they will advance to their second consecutive district title game, playing against either Massillon Jackson or Massillon Washington at Thurman Munson Stadium in Canton at 5 p.m. Thursday.

In the last four postseasons, Chardon competed in OHSAA Division II due to enrollment, but a sudden spike in its boys graduating class returned it to Division I, just in time for a chance to repeat as the state champions.

Holding a 3-1 advantage in the second inning, defensive miscues came back to haunt the Hilltoppers with two outs.

Senior center fielder Sebastian Stotnicky reached base when sophomore third baseman Stone Fawcett misplayed a ground ball.

Bulldogs’ junior left fielder Champ Knox hit a grounder to senior first baseman Jake Barker but he also had trouble fielding the ball and overthrew senior right-hander Nolan Kirsh, who covered the bag, allowing Stotnicky to score and Knox to advance to second.

“It was a tough call,” said the 11th year coach. “Obviously Jake could have held the ball there but that is what good teams do. Obviously they are going to put pressure on our defense and put balls in play and they scored on that one error.”

The Bulldogs’ scoring threat ended when Knox was picked off in a rundown in an attempt to steal third base.

Canton McKinley hurler Sebastian Wilkins, who had issued three walks in the first two innings, continued laboring in the third inning and the Hillltoppers cashed in.

Barker and Fawcet led off with walks. Junior left fielder Leo Colombi drove in both with a single, and advancing to third base on a fielding error by Knox, pushing Chardon’s lead to 5-2.

The Chardon batters stayed patient against Wilkins, drawing eight walks in the game.

“You want to win the freebie war,” acknowledged Long. “Anytime they are going to give us free bases when they make an error, walk batters, overthrow a pitch or hit a batter we want to capitalize on their mistakes and I felt like we did a really good job of that on Thursday especially by having eight walks.”

After the error in the second inning, Kirsh settled down, retiring 15 of the next 17 batters to toss a complete game, surrendering only two runs (one earned) on three hits, three walks and 10 strikeouts on 124 pitches.

“He was one pitch away from 125 and we knew that and had a guy ready to go obviously if he exceeded that but the amazing thing about Nolan is that his last three pitches of the game, pitch number 122, 123 and 124, were all fastballs at 90 MPH,” Long said. “Nolan is a guy that really does not get sore and he gets better as the game goes on and he proved that yesterday.”

For Kirsh, it was a dominant outing that did not start well, when he could not find the strike zone and surrendered a run-scoring single off the bat off of Wilkins in the first inning, putting the Hilltoppers behind 1-0.

Chardon quickly erased the deficit in the bottom half of the first, starting with a game-tying RBI-single by Barker followed by a two-run triple from Fawcett, putting the Hilltoppers ahead 3-1.

“Our backs were against the ropes and Stone coming up in that first inning with that big hit was just huge,” said Long. “Jake has been doing it all year. That is what we expect out of Jake, Stone and Nolan. Those three guys always step up in big-time moments.”

After Canton McKinley pulled within 3-2 in the top of the second, the Hilltoppers turned the tide, ousting their opponents from playoff contention.

Ranked as the fourth seed in the district, Chardon had the opportunity to play closer to home in either the Euclid district or the Macedonia district but opted to play further away in the Canton district.

Long said while it may have been more a drive for the district semifinal and championship, it was a road trip the Hilltoppers were more than comfortable with.

“We also do well traveling on the road,” added Long. “We did it all last year in the postseason. We just drove 3½ hours to go play a regular season game in Defiance a few weeks ago so our guys having long road trips or having long bus rides really do not faze us that much.”

Since becoming the head coach in 2012, Long has seen Chardon advance to the district semifinal in 10 of 11 seasons.

“Anything can happen in playoff baseball and we are very fortunate enough from 2012-2023 now to have made it through all of the sectional rounds except 2015 so it really goes to show you what kind of caliber-program that we have,” Long said.