Mayfield vs. Riverside baseball: Wildcats take advantage of Beavers errors to punch district ticket, 3-1
May 19—After falling behind early against Riverside in a Division I sectional final, Mayfield knew it needed the bats to come alive quickly. The Wildcats took advantage of a throwing error in the fourth inning to tie the game, and a double by Joey Barch gave them the lead in the sixth.
Mayfield tacked on another run off of another throwing error by Riverside in the seventh and went on to win 3-1. The Wildcats move on to face Massillon in a district semifinal at Nordonia on May 24 in the second game of the day.
The win also sees Mayfield get back into the conference title race. If the Wildcats beat Chardon on May 20, they will split with Riverside. No matter the result, Riverside has at least a share of the conference title since 2005.
The Wildcats had a strong defensive presence, especially with heads-up play by third baseman Rocco Monastero. In the first inning, he recovered from a misjudged ground ball and made the throw to first in time for the out.
Monastero struck again in the fifth with runners on first and second and a well-hit ground ball to him. Instead of trying to throw across the diamond, he tagged the runner advancing to third to end the inning. Mayfield coach Darren Rapposelli had seen Monastero make those kind of plays at the JV level all season and knew he was ready when his number was called.
Mayfield had a strong play on the defensive side and head coach Darren Rapposelli talks about the job in all facets of the game today @MHSwildcatbsb #NHBaseball pic.twitter.com/XHUwtFbNHX
— Ben Hercik (@BHercikNH) May 20, 2022
"We lost our starting shortstop Sammy (Rapposelli) in the game against Solon," said Rapposelli. "The nicest thing is then to have a guy like Rocco ready to roll. He was hitting the ball well on the JV side and we knew he was at least going to dress for this postseason. To be able to go to him and have him execute in that situation shows why he deserves to be in that spot."
While the defense was strong for Mayfield, the bats took some time to warm up. Pitcher Austin Ziance gave them plenty of time to do so as he allowed five hits, one run and he struck out seven.
"Timely hits were huge for us to have a lead like we did," said Rapposelli. "Aaron (Conrad) came in as a DH situation and I knew he was going to be able to get on in that situation to get some extra cushion. We've felt good hitting the baseball as of late. While today was a tougher day, we will adjust next time out."
The hot bat for the Wildcats came from Barch who was 3-for-3 from the plate and drove in the game-tying and go-ahead runs in the fourth and sixth innings, respectively.
It was a perfect day in the box for Joey Barch (3-3 with a pair of runs batted in) and he talks about his day from the plate @MHSwildcatbsb #NHBaseball pic.twitter.com/48hT8MELKY
— Ben Hercik (@BHercikNH) May 20, 2022
"I was able to put the ball in play and we took advantage of the situation that we had," said Barch. "We got the runs off of them and whether it was a hit or a bad throw to get a run across, it was getting that lead that mattered the most."
Even though Mayfield won, Tyler Baker made the Wildcats work for it as the junior allowed no earned runs and struck out six. Riverside coach John Wakim was proud of the effort that his pitcher put in today but knew that no matter the arm, it's a challenge to recover from three errors.
Three untimely errors ultimately did in @BeaverRBI, but with a strong pitcher in Tyler Baker and a lot of talent coming back, head coach John Wakim knows that his team will learn from their sectional final defeat #NHBaseball pic.twitter.com/ey1uKMPJsV
— Ben Hercik (@BHercikNH) May 20, 2022
"He did a great job at hitting the spots that I was calling," said Waikim. "We had a lot of good outs where we did execute the outs that we wanted but it was just those small mistakes on a few throws that cost us the game."
Riverside started the scoring with a single by Nick Lastoria in the third for the Beavers' only run of the game.
