By JOSH BURRIS
DECATUR – The Norwell Knights won three games in three days on Bellmont’s baseball diamond to win its second straight sectional championship.
Norwell kicked tournament play off with a 9-2 win over Mississinewa on Saturday, followed by a 5-4 win over Oak Hill on Monday afternoon. Then they capped the run on Monday night with a 12-2 victory over Heritage in the championship.
“It’s great,” Norwell junior Luke Graft said after his team hoisted up its new hardware. “It’s everything we’ve been working for. Back-to-back (championships) feels really good.”
Despite being the defending champion, the Knights came into the tournament seen as an underdog. Heritage ended the regular season ranked No. 8 in the Class 3A coaches’ poll, and Oak Hill was ranked 10th.
Norwell (18-10), meanwhile, was left unranked. Coach Dave Goodmiller had high praise for his team’s effort.
“We beat a couple of top ranked teams,” Goodmiller said. “The kids played well. They’ve worked hard and they earned.”
Heritage defeated Norwell 10-3 back in April behind a great effort on the mound by pitcher Chris Hoffman. He took the mound again in the rematch, but the result the second time around was much different. Hoffman lasted 3 1/3 innings and allowed five runs (three earned) on six hits and two walks and was tagged with the loss.
A sacrifice fly by Brody Bolyn and an RBI single by Lleyton Bailey gave the Knights a 2-0 lead after one inning. Drew Graft drove in a run on a double in the second to make it 3-0 Norwell.
Heritage fought back in the third with two runs on a single by Tyler Redmon to trim Norwell’s lead to 3-2.
Then the Knights broke the game wide open in the fourth with seven runs in 12 at-bats off three different Heritage pitchers.
The Knights loaded the bases with one out and scored their first run of the inning on a passed ball. Luke Graft then drove in two runs with a single up the middle.
Then with the bases loaded again, Kline Neuenschwander was hit by a pitch and Trey Bodenheimer drew a walk to score two more runs. Josiah Leidig capped the scoring off with a single to shallow left field to drive in two runs and give Norwell a commanding 10-2 lead going into the fifth.
“They changed the pitchers and had trouble throwing strikes to a couple of our hitters, so that kind of helped us get some runners in scoring position. And then we were able to hit the ball hard,” Goodmiller said about his team’s big fourth inning. “The kids had a good approach.”
Norwell loaded the bases in that fifth inning, but left them stranded.
Bodenheimer kicked the sixth off with a bang though, hitting a solo home run to make it 11-2. Later in the inning, Drew Graft drove in a run with a single to center to give Norwell the win early by the 10-run rule.
Cade Shelton got the win on the mound for Norwell, pitching all six innings and allowing two runs on four hits and a walk while striking out one.
The Knights were efficient on the mound all tournament, using just three of their arms in the three games they played.
Shelton also got a four-out save in the Oak Hill game. Bolyn started that game and allowed four unearned runs on four hits and three walks while striking out seven.
Bailey, who was not even expected to be able to pitch by Goodmiller due to a shoulder injury suffered against Columbia City back on May 17, pitched a complete game on Saturday against Mississinewa. He allowed one earned run on two hits while striking out nine and walking three.
“The kids really did a great job pitching-wise,” Goodmiller said. “We just tried to get as many pitches out of them as we could, and it worked out for us.
Against Oak Hill, the Knights got on the board first aided by a couple of Oak Hill errors. Drew Graft reached base on one of those errors, and Luke Graft followed with a single. Bolyn hit into a fielder’s choice that led to Luke Graft being thrown out at second, but reached first safely on a bad throw that led to Drew Graft scoring. Then with two down, Bailey ripped a double to right to score another and make it 2-0 Norwell.
Oak Hill took the lead in the third with three runs. With two outs and the bases loaded, Tyler Rennaker hit a hard ground ball that was blocked by Norwell second baseman Luke McBride, but was unable to make a clean play and two runs scored. JC Hernandez followed with an RBI single to right to put his team ahead 3-2.
Then in the bottom of the third, Luke Graft singled and later scored on a passed ball to tie it up 3-3. But Oak Hill took the lead back in the top of the fourth with a run scored on a hard-hit ground ball by Keegan Deaton that Norwell could not field cleanly.
The Knights took the lead for good in the fifth. Drew Graft and Luke Graft got them going with back-to-back singles. Shelton hit a sacrifice fly to score Drew Graft, and Luke Graft later scored on a passed ball again to make it 5-4 Norwell.
Against Mississinewa, the Knights used the long ball to score early and often. Luke Graft hit a solo shot, and Bolyn hit a two-run bomb to give Norwell a quick 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Bodenheimer hit a single up the middle later in the inning to drive in a run, and Leidig drove in another on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-0 Norwell.
Bodenheimer drove in a run in the third and another in the fifth. McBride drove one in the fifth as well on a double that put Norwell ahead 8-0.
Mississinewa was finally able to get two runs off Bailey in the fifth, and it could have been a lot more. The Indians loaded the bases with two outs, but Bailey struck out the next batter to get out of the jam.
The Knights added one more run for insurance in the sixth when Shelton scored on a wild pitch.
“I’m happy for the kids. They played well in all facets,” Goodmiller reiterated about the tournament as a whole.
The Knights will travel to Oak Hill on Saturday for the regional tournament. They will take on Bishop Dwenger in their first game at 2 p.m. following a matchup between Wawasee and New Castle at 11 a.m.
The Knights will be looking to defend their regional crown as well after defeating Wawasee and Leo in last year’s tournament.
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