By RICHIE HALL
INDIANAPOLIS – The strategy couldn’t have been more simple for Hamilton Southeastern as the Class 4A state championship baseball game was heading towards its conclusion.
The game was tied at 2-2, with the Royals to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning. The plan was about as basic as it could get: Get on, get in, walk off with the trophy.
Southeastern did just that, scoring the winning run in dramatic fashion to claim a 3-2 victory over Columbus East. The Royals thus won the school’s first-ever baseball state title in a game that didn’t start until 9:50 p.m. on Monday and didn’t finish until after midnight on Tuesday due to weather delays that disrupted the earlier 1A game.
“I was pretty confident, although the weather was a little sketchy today,” said Southeastern coach Jeremy Sassanella. “I knew playing at Victory Field with their full grounds crew and with the tarp, and per Mr. Faulkens saying, ‘We’ll play late,’ I was okay. We walked in the door and I said ‘Hey, we’re prepared to play at 3 o’clock in the morning.’ He says, ‘I like to hear that.’ So we don’t want to come back. Thankfully the weather broke enough for us to get the game in.”
Southeastern started its final drive to the championship with perfect defense in the sixth and seventh innings. In the sixth, two Royals players made spectacular catches for outs in foul territory, starting with Greyson Droste nabbing a foul ball for the first out. After Tyler Schweitzer got a strikeout, Cam Bolling stepped up with another big foul catch to end the inning.
“Well, that’s huge. Making those foul outs and getting the hard plays,” said Droste. He noted that if a foul ball isn’t caught, the batter can come back and get a huge hit.
“Taking pressure off the pitcher is huge,” said Droste. “Getting outs on tough plays and everybody really played great defensively today, and that really helped out the pitchers. It made us only have to put up a couple runs to win the game.”
Minutes later, the Royals played probably the best seventh inning of any baseball team in Indiana this season. In the top of the inning, pitcher Tyler Schweitzer faced the top of the Olympians’ order. No problem: He struck out the side, one-two-three.
“I was all in the moment right there,” said Schweitzer. “I didn’t hear anything around the crowd. It was just me and Jack.” That would be catcher Jack DeWolf, and Schweitzer credited him with doing a good job calling the game.
With the top of the inning finished, HSE brought up the top of its order in the bottom of the seventh. With one out, Anthony Eggers got on base with a single. That brought up Brayton Harrison, and he reached on error, moving Eggers to second base.
Greyson Droste was up next, and he sent a 1-1 pitch into the infield. Columbus East tried for a double play, but while the Olympians got the out at second, they overthrew to first base. Meanwhile, Eggers had already passed third, and he was soon home to score the winning run.
“I rounded it just to look where it was at because I was running to third hard, because I don’t know why I thought the ball was going to three,” said Eggers. “It wasn’t. But I just rounded. I saw it go by, and then everything just went silent. I just scored. I turned around, like, did we even win? It was just so, so quiet. I didn’t even feel like we won, because I thought it was a delay of game or something, until my whole team just came and tackled me. It was just crazy. I’m happy the way it ended. It couldn’t have ended any better.”
“Everything happened so fast,” said Sassanella. “The kids had a tremendous amount of grit all year long. In our league, we just have to fight. We had some hard-fought wins early, and I said ‘Guys, this is going to pay dividends and I’m really proud of you for doing that.’ It’s fitting that we had rain. It’s fitting that it went down to the wire. And we’re just blessed, more times than not this year we’ve come out on the winning side of these tight ball games. I’m incredibly proud of the kids.”
Here’s one more reason to be proud of the HSE players: During the trophy presentation, they made sure that Ken Seitz was the first one to take hold of the trophy. Seitz has been with Hamilton Southeastern for 44 years – he was the head baseball coach for 25 years, and also served as the athletic director for 25 years. Seitz came out of retirement to be an assistant coach for the Royals in 2010, and it is his jersey that will be on display in Victory Field for the next year.
The Royals also scored one run each in the first and third innings. In the first, Cole DeWael smacked a double on the very first pitch. He moved to third on a passed ball, then got home on a single by DeWolf.
Columbus East scored in the top of the third, but Southeastern responded with a run in the bottom of the inning. Harrison singled on to first, stole second, and was batted in by DeWolf; it was DeWolf’s second RBI of the game. The Olympians scored again in the fifth inning, and the game stayed in a 2-2 tie until the Royals’ walk-off score.
Southeastern totaled seven hits, with DeWolf going 2-for-3 at the plate.
“It was certainly an awesome experience, different from any other baseball game I’ve ever played in,” said DeWolf.
Schweitzer came in during the fifth inning, relieving Michael Dillon. The starter Dillon pitched well in four innings, with three strikeouts against four hits. Schweitzer finished the game, tossing five strikeouts.
Southeastern finished the season 23-8. The Royals also won their 12th state championship in school history. Add that to the HSE girls basketball team winning state in February, and it’s the second time the Royals have won two state titles in the same school year. Southeastern won boys swimming and softball state championships in 2007.
Hamilton Southeastern 3, Columbus East 2
Columbus East AB R H RBI
Jonah Wichman 4 1 1 0
Dalton Back 2 0 1 0
Julian Greenwell 4 0 1 1
Cole Gilley 2 0 0 0
Jose Martinez 0 0 0 0
Parker Harrison 2 0 1 1
Nash Murphy 3 0 0 0
T.J. Barkhimer 2 0 0 0
Clayton Taylor 3 1 1 0
Ben Major 2 0 0 0
Harrison Major 0 0 0 0
Totals 24 2 5 2
3B: Back. SB: Back, Barkhimer. SAC: B. Major.
Columbus East pitching IP R ER H
Gilley 6.0 2 2 6
Greenwell 0.2 1 0 1
Strikeouts: Gilley 6, Greenwell 1. Walks: Gilley 3.
Southeastern AB R H RBI
Cole DeWael 3 1 1 0
Anthony Eggers 4 1 1 0
Brayton Harrison 3 1 1 0
Greyson Droste 4 0 0 0
Jack DeWolf 3 0 2 2
Caden Ruhnow 0 0 0 0
Jake Huston 3 0 0 0
Matthew Buckingham 3 0 1 0
Michael Dillon 0 0 0 0
Jake Stout 3 0 0 0
Cam Bolling 2 0 1 0
Tyler Schweitzer 0 0 0 0
Totals 28 3 7 2
2B: DeWael. SB: Harrison 2, Bolling.
Southeastern pitching IP R ER H
Dillon 4 2 2 4
Schweitzer (W) 3 0 0 1
Strikeouts: Schweitzer 5, Dillon 3. Walks: Dillon 5.
Score by innings
Columbus East 001 010 0 – 2 5 3
Southeastern 101 000 1 – 3 7 0
The Hamilton Southeastern baseball team won the program’s first-ever state championship Monday night (Tuesday morning!), scoring a walk-off run in the seventh inning to beat Columbus East 3-2 for the Class 4A state title. The Royals finished their season 23-8. (Kirk Green)
Hamilton Southeastern’s Anthony Eggers heads home to scoring the winning run for the Royals. (Kirk Green)