Baseball team advances to state semifinals
Solid pitching by Judd Vekaryasz and a clutch three-run double by Tim Cercone sparked the Hurons to a quarterfinal win over Mason County Eastern Tuesday at Elk Rapids. With the win, Hurons made the final four in Division IV and will now take on Bay City All Saints, a 4-1 winner over Fulton-Middleton, in the state semifinals at Battle Creek Friday at 2 p.m. The winner will play the winner of the Muskegon Catholic Central (21-6) vs. Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest (24-7) winner in Saturday?s 2 p.m. state championship game.
Vekaryasz, whose grand slam won a regional game for the Hurons Saturday (see separate story), went all the way. He allowed 10 hits and four walks while striking out six. Cercone, a senior, came up with two outs, the Hurons trailing 1-0, and the bases full in the fifth inning. He pounced on an outside pitch, blasting it to the fence in right-center, driving in Nathan Darga, Austin Fairbanks, and Cody Wenzel. Adam LaLonde stepped in next, and the senior third baseman drove a single to right to score Cercone.
THE CARDS came back with a homer off Vekaryasz in the fifth and put the next two runners on base before his strikeout of Brian Spinner ended the inning. Fairbanks opened the seventh by being hit by a pitch and would eventually score. This would turn out to be the winning run, as Cercone?s single, after a sacrifice by Justin Kelley, drove home Fairbanks. Leading 5-2, the Hurons survived a scare in the bottom of the seventh inning. The combination of single-walk-single-single- fielder?s choic
?WE JUST happened to get the key hits today and that was the difference,? said coach Howard Madsen. The baseball team makes its first appearance at the semifinals since 1998. ?We will just take it one pitch at a time, one game at a time. That is the way we have been playing all year. We?ve played some tough schools. Hopefully the competition that we?ve played so far will prepare us for the state semifinal and final game,? Madsen said.
The team has not lost to a Division IV school this season. The Hurons played in Division III until this year when declining enrollment moved RCHS into Division IV.