GALION — On Wednesday evening, the Colonel Crawford Eagles baseball squad, the No. 2 seeded team in the Division IV Galion District, took on the No. 3 seeded Plymouth Big Red in their semifinals matchup.
Crawford and Plymouth had already faced each other earlier on this season with the Eagles coming out on top by a score of 4-3 back on March 25 to earn their first victory of the season.
Fast forward to Wednesday with both teams vying for a district championship game berth against the No. 1 seeded Mohawk Warriors.
The Eagles would strike first with a run in the bottom of the opening frame and tacked on an additional run in the bottom of the third to extend their lead to 2-0. After a quiet fourth, Plymouth would get two runs across in the top of the fifth to knot the game at two runs apiece. That tie would be short-lived however as Crawford managed to plate three in the home half of the inning to put themselves in control late in the ballgame; 5-2.
Plymouth cut into that advantage in the sixth but failed to keep the Eagles off of the scoreboard and the two squads headed into the decisive seventh with Crawford ahead; 6-3. The Big Red would be unable to rally and were blanked in the visitors’ half of the seventh to give Colonel Crawford the three-run victory.
With the win, the Eagles improved to 21-7 overall on the season, this after finishing the 2018 season at 4-20. Crawford will move on to face Mohawk as the teams will meet in Galion on Friday, May 24 for their third clash this season. In Northern-10 Athletic Conference play, these two teams split the season series with Mohawk taking the first game in 11 innings; 1-0 and Crawford taking the second; 9-0. The winner on Friday will move on to Patrick Henry High School in Hamler to face the winner of the Bryan District on Thursday, May 30 at 2 p.m. in regional semifinals action.
Drayton Burkhart was the winning pitcher on the day for the Eagles, going the entire seven innings and giving up seven hits and three runs (two earned) while walking just one and earning another 10 strikeouts.
Crawford scored their six runs on seven hits, stranded eight on the base path and committed five errors defensively.
Cade Hamilton led the offense for the Eagles, racking up two singles and a triple while also scoring three runs and swiping a pair of bases. Gavin Feichtner also earned a multi-hit game for the victors, knocking a single and a double while scoring a run and driving in two teammates.
Other offensive statistics for Colonel Crawford on Wednesday were: Trevin Fairchild- 2R; Mason McKibben- 1B, RBI; Dylan Cooke- RBI and Brock Ritzhaupt- 2B.
