Trojan errors send Solon to state

WASHINGTON ? In a substate contest between Fairfield and Solon on Wednesday, costly mistakes pushed the Spartans to some late momentum.

Solon capitalized on the Fairfield errors, scoring five unanswered runs over the final two innings, leading to a 6-4 victory over the Trojans.

?It was uncharacteristic, we don?t play that bad of defense, it?s just not us,? said Fairfield head coach Josh Allison. ?I have no idea what happened, no words of wisdom to tell them. That?s not how we play. We have rules we follow in rundowns and for some reason, we didn?t follow them today. I told the young guys to look at what the seniors did this year and we hope that transfers to them.?

In the muggy and overwhelming heat of the early matchup, Alex Crile jump-started the offense with a solo home run in the bottom of the first on the third pitch he saw. Crile?s blast went to straight-away center and cleared the fence with ease, prompting a loud cheer from the Fairfield crowd as the Trojans took a 1-0 lead.

Cameron Baumann followed with a three-strikeout inning in the second inning, allowing only a single to Zach Wegmann. Fairfield?s offense would get a single from Austin Simpson in the second inning, but couldn?t convert the leadoff hit into a run.

?He was throwing really well, hitting locations well and mixing in his breaking ball,? said Allison. ?He would blow it by them when he needed to as well. I don?t think we ever thought we had this one wrapped up and we knew it was never over until the last out.?

Baumann would retire the Spartans one-two-three in the third inning, racking up his fourth consecutive strikeout for the first out and taking a line drive from the bat of Patrick Maston off his foot, but recovering in time to make the final out of the inning.

Fairfield would get three runs in the third inning as Hunter Hoskins and Crile would reach on back-to-back Solon errors. After a pop-out by Jordan Reid, Baumann stepped up and delivered a solid single that scored both Fairfield runners, and the junior would advance all the way to third as Solon tried to throw home. Kosta Papazaglou drove Baumann in with an RBI groundout to the shortstop to make it 4-0 Fairfield.

Solon scored its first run in the fourth inning on a deep fly ball to center from Peyton Bandy. Graham Kuehl got a bead on it and despite a leaping effort, the ball popped out of the Fairfield outfielder?s glove and allowed Spencer Wymann to come all the way around to score.

The Spartans would push the envelope in the sixth inning with one out. Dillon Drake singled to start the rally. Fairfield looked to get out of it on a soft pop-up toward second, but the ball popped out of Crile?s glove and everyone would be safe. The Spartans picked up RBI hits from Bandy and Bock and then scored on a botched suicide squeeze attempt that ended with Bandy crashing into Baumann at home plate. The Fairfield junior exchanged words with Bandy, but recovered to retire Bock on another squeeze play and struck out Johnny Kessler to end the inning.

?I was proud of Cam for keeping his cool through all that,? said Allison. ?He kept his composure, went back out and finished off the inning, keeping us where we needed to be. The Cam from last year might have retaliated and it shows how far he?s matured this year.

?There were several plays in this game that hurt us.?

The Trojans picked up consecutive hits in the sixth inning from Simpson and Cade Lisk, but a pop-out on a bunt and a 4-6-3 double-play ended the Fairfield scoring threat and sent the teams to the seventh all tied up.

Kendrick Harris led off the inning with a single and Luke Ira laid down a bunt to move the go-ahead run up. The throw sailed into right-field, scoring Harris from first and allowing Ira to move all the way to third base. Maston followed with a sacrifice fly to right, giving the Spartans that extra insurance run just in case. Baumann would get a strikeout and a groundout to end the inning.

Fairfield?s final at-bats ended with Hoskins reaching on an error by the Spartans, a flyout to left and a 6-4-3 double play to end the ballgame.

?We wanted to make sure we put pressure on them,? said Solon head coach Keith McSweeney. ?The game plan was to make sure that we played loose. All the pressure the last two games has been in the other team?s dugout. We faced some prospects and at first glance, you might think we?re overmatched. We told our kids if we?re in the game in the fifth inning that we can capitalize on that pressure. We weren?t expected to win this and it played out a little bit.

?Our mantra the past couple weeks was ?Why not us?? and I was proud of the kids? approach this game and we got lucky on that suicide squeeze play and we applied that pressure we needed.?