Crestview’s Nate Lichtle safely slides into second under Ottoville second baseman Andy Moorman (13) with shortstop Jace Langhals backing up the play Saturday at Ottoville.
Jose Nogueras | The Lima News
OTTOVILLE — Slowly but surely the Crestview players are getting their baseball legs underneath them.
After the Knights lost to Columbus Grove, 13-3, Thursday, Crestview bounced back to pick up a 7-0 win against Ottoville in a non league affair Saturday.
The win ups the Big Green’s record to 6-3 on the year. Ottoville slips to 1-7 on the season.
“We are getting there,” Crestview head coach Jim Wharton said. “We had a tough one against Grove on Thursday so this one was a little different. It was a two ‘o clock start which normally when we start and our basketball guys are coming around now and they are starting to get their baseball legs under them. We still have some work to do but this could be a special team for us.”
As the Knights appear to be finding their groove, the Big Green continues to search for theirs and it did not help Ottoville’s cause that they were missing three players who are away on a senior trip leaving the Big Green undermanned.
“We are still searching,” Ottoville head coach Ty Wannemacher said. “Honestly the past two days we haven’t had our seniors. They are on their senior trip and that makes a world of difference for us and not so much for leadership because we have so good leaders with some of the younger guys but those seniors would have helped out a ton.”
Strong pitching and timely hitting paved the way for Crestview to get the win.
The Knight duo of Preston Kreischer and Connor Sheets combined on the three-hitter. Getting the win, Kreischer went the first five, allowing two hits while striking out three and walking one. Sheets finished off the last two frames by allowing one hit, walking three and striking out three.
“We got a good outing by both “P” (Kreischer) and Connor (Sheets) to finish it up for us and when you get a good outing from those guys it makes you settle down a little more and the defense plays well,” Wharton said.
For Ottoville, starter Brandon Calvelage, tossing an assortment of off-speed stuff, helped the Big Green stay close, yielding two runs and seven hits while striking out one and walking one over five innings of work.
“He (Calvelage) pitched pretty well for us this year. Really this is his first year pitching,” Wannemacher said. “He is a sophomore and he hung in there with Fairview and he hung right in there with these guys. We just needed that one big hit. We had that opportunity in the first inning with a runner in scoring position and in the next inning we had guys on second and third and couldn’t get that hit.
“It kind of stinks because we were playing a little better and then the seniors left and unfortunately with those guys gone we had to play a lot of guys in positions that they normally don’t play but it was the cards that we were dealt and we got some guys some experience.”
However, the Knights broke the game open in the sixth in the final two frames by roughing up Big Green pitching for five runs on three hits.
Six of the Knights’ seven runs came after they had recorded two outs. In the second inning, it was Isaac Kline coming through in the clutch when he laced a single to bring home two runs. In the sixth it was Sheets with a double to drive in two runs.
Two more runs were tacked on in the seventh when Nate Lichtle delivered a sacrifice fly to left to drive in one and Hunter Jones followed with an RBI single.
For the game, Parker Speith went 3 for 3 with a run scored. Jones went 2 for 3 with two runs and an RBI and Kline was 2 for 3 with 2 RBI.
Wharton pointed out that the later afternoon start was something his players were unaccustomed to playing but began to put things together as the game progressed.
“Sometimes it is tough in these conditions and some of the kids adjusted better than others,” Wharton said. “Parker in the nine hole really came through for us and we had some other timely hits that pushed across some runs because it was a 2-0 game for a long time.”
For Ottoville, Keaton “Papa Bear” Schnipke went 1 for 2 with a double.
Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.
