High school baseball: Wadsworth beats Strongsville for first district title since 2001

BEREA — Normally stoic Jon Byers froze the final batter with a filthy 2-2 curveball, let out a roar and stomped toward the dugout as his teammates rushed to mob him in celebration. Byers and his Wadsworth teammates had every reason to party like rock stars after painting the baseball version of a Mona Lisa, dismantling seventh-seeded Strongsville in every way possible in a Division I, Northeast 5 District championship game at Baldwin Wallace's beautiful Fisher Field. The right-handed Byers spun the ball with efficiency most can only accomplish on a video game as the third-seeded Grizzlies worked counts, attacked the base paths without fear and made all the key plays defensively, playing coach Greg Pickard's style of ball to near-perfection en route to a 6-0 victory. Wadsworth (21-5) advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2001, when stars like Andy Sonnanstine and Drew Saylor donned the red and white, and will face the Greater Akron area version of the 1990s New York Yankees, Walsh Jesuit (24-3), on Thursday at Oberlin College. That was far from the Grizzlies' minds, however, after getting revenge for a 7-1 beatdown by the Mustangs in the district final last year. "Honestly, I don't know how I feel right now," Pickard said while holding the district championship trophy, a coveted piece of hardware after falling one victory short in 2022 and 2015. "I'm so damn proud of (Byers) and the effort he gave us today out on the mound — oh, my gosh — the defense we played, the timely hitting — a couple with two strikes. "I'm just happy for them. I'm proud for this program. Like I said, it's been a long time coming, and hopefully this will be the monkey off our back." Byers needed just 74 pitches (52 strikes) to toss a three-hitter with four strikeouts. The Grizzlies wore down left-handed Strongsville starter Keegan Cubbison to the tune of 91 pitches and a 2-0 lead through four innings, tacked on two more insurance runs off Toledo-bound reliver Brandon Lucek in the fifth and put away the Mustangs for good with two runs in the sixth. Byers, the 260-pound two-year starting center for the football team, got out of three two-out jams. He induced a routine grounder to third baseman Daniel Green with a runner on second in the second, got a grounder to second baseman Ben Leopold with two on in the third and called his own number in the fifth when he stabbed at a hard-hit ball from Lucek and tossed him out underhand style with a runner on third. The performance was one of redemption, as Byers has struggled at times with consistency and endurance after straining his right pronator tendon during a preseason bullpen session. The complete game was just his second of the season. "The coaches helped me so much by giving me time to get under my feet, and I just continued to get better," he said. "Today was great. It showed all the hard work that my parents have encouraged me to do, all the hard work for my teammates, has caused everything to come full circle. Going through the process shows me the more I do, the better I become. "As you can see, the result was better than ever." Pickard has built the program around fundamentally smart, aggressive play, and Wadsworth could make an instructional video for future generations from this one. Byers (5-3, 2.10) faced just two three-ball counts, completed a four-batter fourth inning in four pitches and was so locked in that his misses were just off the plate. The defense was highlighted by a beautiful double play from shortstop Kyle Figuray in which he stepped on second, gathered and threw to first in one motion, while Leopold had a full-extension leaping snare two pitches later. The baserunning resulted in a double steal as well as a perfect baited throw by Aaron Keating at third when No. 3 hitter Daniel Hall bunted with runners on second and third in the sixth. Another major key was quality at-bats, a nine-pronged system of success Wadsworth lives and dies by instead of traditional statistics such as batting average, on-base percentage and OPS. With 10 hits, six walks, four hard-hit balls for outs, moving runners twice with no outs and 14 plate appearances with at least five pitches, the Grizzlies made Mustangs pitchers work for everything they got. "We were just being patient and waiting for our game and playing it, really," said left fielder Eric Decker, who was 2-for-3 with a triple, run and RBI. "We were hitting the ball and scoring runs." Wadsworth got on the board with help from an error and two walks in the first, leading to Green driving in Figuray when he reached out over the plate and blooped a single to center. While Hall was gunned down at the plate, the Grizzlies had set the tone for the rest of the somewhat chilly and breezy afternoon that often deadened any ball hit to the outfield. Decker got Wadsworth going again in the fourth, rocketing a towering ball over center fielder Lucek's head for a leadoff triple. No. 9 hitter Austin Miller then had what Pickard considered the top plate appearance of the day by fighting off two 0-2 pitches before lining a sacrifice fly to right field that made the score 2-0. Lucek, one of the top relievers in the Greater Cleveland Conference, took over in the sixth but immediately gave up an infield single to Hall and a sacrifice bunt to Leopold. Left-hander Kai Close, the lone sophomore in the starting lineup, then ripped a an opposite-field double to push the ante to 3-0, and Decker followed two batters later with an RBI single. That chased Lucek in favor of Ryan Gordon, who the Grizzlies got to in the sixth. Keating and Figuray led off with singles before the speedy Keating baited a throw to third on Hall's bunt and got back safely to load the bases. Keating scored on a wild pitch soon thereafter, and Leopold delivered the final blow with a single to left. A whopping 131 pitches later, the Grizzlies had deflated any Strongsville hopes of a comeback. "It's unbelievable," Byers said. "It's something (the program has) been working for for 22 years, since before any of us players were born. This has been an absolute dream this year. Beginning of the season, we were 0-3 in scrimmages and didn't know how we were going to do. "After that, we just completely picked it up and we bonded as a team. We were all friends, but baseball has bonded us together as more than friends. We're family. No matter what, we know we have each others' backs." Contact Albert Grindle at (330) 721-4043 or agrindle@medina-gazette.com. Wadsworth 6, Strongsville 0 Division I, Northeast 5 District Final STRONGSVILLE &emsp;&emsp;000 000 0 — 0 3 1 WADSWORTH &emsp;&emsp;100 122 x — 6 10 2 WP — Jon Byers (5-3) 7 innings, 0 walks, 2 hit batters, 4 strikeouts. LP — Keegan Cubbison 4 innings, 2 runs, 1 earned, 4 hits, 4 walks, 0 strikeouts. Strongsville (15-14). Wadsworth (21-5) — Aaron Keating 2 singles, run; Kyle Figuray single, 2 runs; Daniel Hall single, walk, run; Ben Leopold 2 singles, walk, RBI; Kai Close double, 2 walks, RBI; Daniel Green single, walk, RBI; Eric Decker single, triple, RBI, run.