SPORTS SHORTS: Rough inning ends post-season hopes

Sports shorts: Rough inning ends, post-season hopes

In the months ahead, when the Euclid Panther baseball players look back on their 2011 season, chances are they will recall one inning in particular—an inning in the sectional tournament game against Willoughby South. Their hopes for a major upset, along with their post-season dreams, unraveled in the bottom of the fourth when South’s Rebels broke open a scoreless game with four runs to hand the Panthers a 4-0 setback and knock them out of the tournament.

What made that inning, and the loss, even tougher to swallow was that Euclid pitcher Johnny Law had a no-hitter in the works heading into the fourth. However, a hit in the gap to center field ruined his no-hit bid. Things only went downhill from there as South grabbed a 3-0 lead on just two hits, compounded by a wild pitch and an outfield error on what should have been the final out of the inning.

After a pitching change, a walk with the bases loaded made it 4-0. Finally, Panther relief hurler Josh Roberts ended the inning with a strikeout, getting the Rebel batsman to go down swinging at a fastball.

But South had scored all the runs it would need, earning the triumph despite nicking the Panther pitching crew for just two hits, on a day when the strong winds blowing in from the outfield worked to the pitchers’ advantage. In the days that followed, the Rebels continued their winning ways, including a 5-2 victory over Mentor in the district finals to gain a berth in the Canton regional tourney.

The Panthers, who had taken a 10-7 record into the South game, never seemed to recover from the loss, as their hopes of challenging for the Lake Erie League title also faded away. Their season ended with a pair of shellackings—by scores of 12-1 and 11-0—in a double-header last week against Mentor.

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VASJ’s Burse captures District 100-meter crown

In a photo finish, Viking speedster Rodney Burse qualified for the Division III regional track meet by winning the 100-meter dash championship at the district meet at Independence. Hitting the tape in 11.29 seconds, Burse edged a Maplewood runner by a a mere 2/100ths of a second to claim the gold medal.

As a team, Villa Angela-St. Joseph placed eighth at Independence with 33 points, as the Vikings’ 4x200 relay team also qualified for the regional. That quartet—Marcellus Embry, Milton Germany, Darryl Jones and David Lozada—placed fourth in the district final with a time of 1:32.8. (The top four in each event advanced.)

Cuyahoga Heights’ relay unit edged the Vikings by a fraction of a second to snare the third-place spot. The event was won by Warren JFK with a time of 1:30.9.

For much of this spring, Burse and Lozada have ranked among the top sprinters in the area. In a listing published by the News-Herald in mid-May, Burse owned the top 100 dash time (11 seconds flat) and Lozada headed the 400 dash list with a time of 50.5 seconds.

Other Vikings to appear in the rankings were: Milton Germany (5-10 in the high jump) and Cierra Boyd (13.1 seconds in the girls’ 100 dash).

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The VASJ baseball team dropped a pair of North Coast League games in late May, including a 9-5 loss to Elyria Catholic which dropped the Vikings’ season record to 8-11, 5-4 in the NCL. Kevin Koehl was the losing pitcher in that one.

Also last week, Patrick Laffey homered for VASJ, but it was one of the rare Viking highlights in a 16-3 league loss to Trinity. Earlier in May, the Vikings fell to Cleveland Central Catholic, 15-5, as Phil Wellington doubled home two of St. Joe’s five runs.

By the way, Wellington, Koehl, and Laffey were three of the four VASJ seniors selected earlier this spring to represent the United States on the Stars and Stripes football team that played against a German squad in Munich, Germany. Michael Brately was the fourth St. Joe gridder to make the trip. Viking head coach John Storey served as an assistant coach for the U.S. team.

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Roberts sets pace for Panther softball squad

Samantha (“Sam”) Roberts, a senior catcher who plans to play softball for Ursuline College, has made the biggest impact at the plate this season for the Euclid Panther softball tearm.

Chosen as one of the News-Herald’s recent Players of the Week, she belted two triples and two home runs in a three-game stretch, during which she had 9 runs batted in. At last report, Roberts was batting .523 for the season with 15 RBI overall. Both Roberts and Ashley Gaughan (.356 average) earned spots on the N-H list of area batting leaders. Pitcher Kate Sudar was fourth in the strikeout rankings with 80.

In the sectional tournament, Sudar was the winning pitcher as the Panthers beat Cleveland Heights, 7-0. She struck out seven batters and drove in a pair of runs as Euclid improved its team record to 9-7. Unfortunately, the Panthers were ousted from post-season play in the sectional final, losing to Chardon by a 10-0 score.

In a recent regular-season game, the Lady Panthers fell victim to Mentor, 3-0, as the Cardinals snapped a scoreless tie with three runs in the fifth inning. The loss evened Euclid’s season record at 9-9, 6-4 in the Lake Erie League. Mentor, in its final season as a member of the LEL, improved its league mark to 11-1.

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CORRECTIONS:  In last month’s Euclid Observer, the wrong caption was used under the photo taken during a Panther baseball game against Lorain. The player in the photo sprinting toward first base was Randy Wente…. Also, the wrong photo credit was used with the pictures taken at the Bill Gutbrod tribute dinner. The photos were actually taken by Emily Robinson.