Wapakoneta’s Taylor Echols delivers a pitch during Thursday’s game against Defiance in Wapakoneta.
Tom Hendrixson | The Lima News
WAPAKONETA – Wapakoneta’s 2-1, 8-inning baseball win over Defiance on Thursday started out as a brilliant pitchers duel and ended up as much, much more.
The pitchers dominated all day but they were only part of the story when things got a little crazy in the last two innings. But it was a good kind of crazy for Wapakoneta and not so good for Defiance in a match-up of two of the Western Buckeye League’s top baseball teams.
How unusual did the last two innings of this early season showdown get?
Winning pitcher Taylor Echols threw the first no-hitter of his career and had a perfect game for 6 1/3 innings. And he came within one out, one swing of the bat, of being the losing pitcher in the seventh inning.
Defiance scored the first run of the game in the top of the seventh inning without a hit when it got only its second base runner of the game on an infield error and he scored on an outfield error.
With Wapakoneta down to its last out in the bottom of the seventh inning, Ryan Camper lined the first pitch he saw to right field for a double that was just inches out of the diving reach of Gavino Gomez to score Ryan Price to tie the game at 1-1.
Then in the bottom of the eighth, Echols led off with a single, Grant Jolly reached base on a fielder’s choice. Kaden Moore walked and Ryan Price drew a bases-loaded walk on a 3-2 count to win the game.
“It was absolute craziness. That was a great, great high school baseball game,” Wapakoneta coach Jason Brandt said. “It was two pitchers who were dealing all day long and two extremely good teams who left it all on the field.
“We could have hung our heads and said, ‘We got beat 1-0 in a great high school game,’ but give our kids credit. They battled,” he said. “Our kids came out and they were focused from the get-go.”
Echols struck out eight and walked one in his no-hitter, which ended with him making a celebratory head first slide across the plate after Price’s walk for the winning run. Kiessling struck out 11, walked 5 and allowed four hits.
“I had everything going today – slider, change-up, curve ball were all working. I got a lot of ground balls on the fast ball and change-up and my defense behind me did a great job,” Echols said. “I wasn’t going for the no-hitter, I just wanted to get our team a win.”
There was “a little bit of quietness” after Defiance got its run in the top of the seventh, Echols said.
“But our guys did a good job of battling back. “That was a huge hit by Camper. Without that, we’re not in this game.
“We talked about the game against Defiance all year. The team that wins this game usually wins the WBL. It was a big moment for everybody,” he said.
Wapakoneta raised its record to 5-1 overall and 2-0 in the WBL. Defiance is 5-1 overall and 1-1 in WBL games.
Defiance coach Tom Held said, “It was just a great high school baseball game. Two great pitchers, just an old-fashioned pitchers duel. Echols and our guy Aidan Kiessling were both really good.
“Very rarely do you see a pitcher in high school who can throw three pitches for strikes and you saw two in the same night and that doesn’t happen very often.”
“They laid it on a platter for us but I give them credit. A lot of times like that when you give up a run in the seventh on a routine play teams will melt but they bounced back and got that two-out hit down the right field line to to tie it,” he said.
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
