My son Nick& Taylor Glaze!!
JCOnline: Regional host Central Catholic made Saturday night's 25-1 championship game victory over Randolph Southern look exceedingly easy.
Knights junior Brett Haan explained that wasn't necessarily the case.
"It's a lot of hard work," said Haan, who allowed just two hits and struck out nine in the five-inning game. "We put in practice after practice after practice. Coach (Tim Bordenet) preaches fundamentals, and that first game, we did, and the second game, we did all we could. Twenty-five to one win; enough said."
Defending state champion Central Catholic won its seventh regional championship, all since 2002. After facing Cowan ace Justin O'Conner in a 4-2 semifinal victory, the Knights feasted on Randolph Southern's pitching staff.
A seven-run second inning set the tone, and the Knights sent 14 batters to the plate while putting the game away with a 10-run fifth.
"We had to make a bit of an adjustment; a 20 mile-per-hour decrease," said CC senior catcher Reed Drysdale, who drove in a run in each of his first three plate appearances. "We worked on that before the game for about an hour. It's something we're more used to playing in that conference that we do. It didn't take long for us to adjust."
Rebels coach Brad Fisher started his top pitcher, Zach Lee, in the semifinals against Attica. Lee's complete game victory put Randolph Southern (25-12) in the finals, yet left Fisher with few pitching options.
Blake Welch (4-5) started but lasted only two innings, and Rebel pitchers allowed 18 hits, seven walks, seven wild pitches and hit three batters.
"We worked hard with our pitching staff to get here, and obviously we were spent," Fisher said. "That was our No. 2 guy and they got to him early and it just went downhill from there. It's tough to come out of that."
Austin Munn homered leading off the second, and things only got worse from there for Randolph Southern. Munn also drove in the seventh and final run of the frame with an infield single, and the Knights quickly led 8-0.
Randolph Southern, playing in its first regional, managed only Jake Wissel's first-inning single and Welch's fourth-inning double against Haan (7-2). He had to follow Taylor Glaze's five-hit, nine-strikeout performance in the semifinal victory over Cowan.
"We challenge each other every day," Haan said. "Our coach tells us we may be the best 1-2 in the area, so we strive on that. We try to be that."
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