Cabrini Tops Royals In Regional Semfinal

 The Blissfield varsity baseball team saw its season come to an end at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights today. The Royals lost to Allen Park Cabrini 7-2 in the regional semifinal. Exactly one week after the Blissfield bats hit everything in sight while posting two 10-run mercy rule wins in the district, the Royals managed just four hits against Cabrini.

“Their pitcher had a lot to do with it,” said head coach Larry Tuttle, of Cabrini starter Trevor Hicks. ‘He kept us off-balance with that slider that he threw.”

Senior Devin Suiter started for Blissfield. After getting the first batter on a fly out, Suiter walked Greg Sombati and Mike O’Leary. He struck out Trevor Hicks but lanky lefty Nathan Ehred smacked a line drive into the left-center gap, scoring two runs. Suiter struck out Justin Belcher to end the inning.

Watching the Royals swing the bats in the first inning, one wouldn’t have guessed they’d struggle so much at the plate.

Cody Spotts led off by hitting a hard ground ball past the diving third basemen for a single. With sophomore Josh Knorr up, however, Spotts was caught stealing second. Knorr wound up hitting a sharply-hit ball to right field, but he was robbed of a single when the right fielder made a sliding catch. Junior Eric Schmidt followed, drilling a pitch to leftfield. The Cabrini leftfielder made a diving catch to rob Schmidt of extra bases. At the time, it was hard to imagine the Royals would go until the fourth inning without putting a runner on base.

After three innings of play, Hicks had pitched to the minimum nine batters. Suiter also settled down. He allowed a single hit in the second and hit a batter with two outs in the third.

Cabrini led 2-0 going into the fourth. That’s when things fell apart for the Royals. Cabrini’s Belcher led off with a hard single to centerfield. Coach Larry Tuttle had seen enough. He called in Schmidt from third base. But the move may have backfired. Dominic Arevalo bunted back to Schmidt, who tried to get the runner at second. The throw pulled Spotts off the bag and Cabrini had two runners on with no outs. Schmidt made shortwork of the next hitter, Andrew Black, striking him out in three pitches. But after working a 1-2 count on Cabrini’s Andrew Jeter, Schmidt lost him and loaded the bases. Mike Lolo followed with a line drive to left-center, scoring two runs. Sombati followed with a single off the end of the bat to drive in the game’s fifth run. The next batter, O’Leary, hit what looked like a single to right, but right fielder Jake Waldvogel fielded the ball and gunned him down  at first. Still, a run scored to make it 6-0.  Hicks followed with a line drive to center to make it 7-0. Blissfield finally got out of the inning when Knorr threw out a runner trying to steal second.

In the bottom of the fourth, with one out, the Royals pushed back. Knorr was hit by a pitch. It appeared that the next hitter was hit by a pitch, and Schmidt was a third of the way down the line to first base when the ump called him back. The missed call drew an argument from Tuttle and brought life to a dugout that had fallen silent. Schmidt walked to take first, and then Warner drove in Blissfield’s first run with a single to right field. The throw to the plate bounced beyond the catcher and the runners advanced to second and third. The Royals couldn’t add to their output, however, and Cabrini led 7-1 after four innings of play.

The pitchers settled down in the fifth, with Schmidt and Hicks each retiring the side in order.  Schmidt had two strikeouts and allowed a single in the sixth. Blissfield was retired in order in the bottom of the inning. Cabrini’s  O’Leary singled to center to start the seventh inning. Schmidt retired the next hitter and then shortstop Spotts fielded a ball on a hop, stepped on second and threw to Dylan Esterline at first to complete the double play, ending the inning.

Blissfield mounted a challenge in the seventh, with one out, Travis Babbitt Walked. Kyle Wehner followed with an infield single. Waldvogel, pinch running for Babbitt, showed smarts on the bases when he took third after the throw to second scooted a few yards beyond the fielder. Esterline followed with a check-swing hit back to the pitcher. The pitcher bobbled the ball but did manage, barely, to throw out Esterline at first. Waldvogel scored, making it 7-2. Wehner took second. Blake Haupricht followed with an infield single, putting runners on the corners. James Trevino walked to load the bases. The season came to an end, however, when Spotts’ drive to the shortstop was fielded and thrown to second for the fielders’ choice.

It was a disappointing end for a squad that featured so many players from last year’s state finalist team. But Tuttle knew that winning the region was going to be difficult.

“We knew going in here that we were almost going to have to play two perfect ball games to get through here,” Tuttle said.

For more on the game, see Wednesday’s edition of The Advance.