KENT CITY — Shelby’s magical ride isn’t over just yet, as the Tigers played a very solid all-around game of baseball Wednesday and defeated Kent City 7-3 in the regional semifinals, earning a spot in the regional title game Saturday in Kalamazoo.
Shelby will face perennially strong Kalamazoo Christian in the regional finals - and it’ll have both its top starting pitchers available, as coach Brian Wright lifted Trevor Weiss after five innings and 72 pitches to have DayDay Garcia finish the game up. By MHSAA rule, pitchers can’t take the mound for three days after throwing 75-plus pitches in a game, forcing some calculus from coaches.
If Shelby wins that regional final, they’d advance to a quarterfinal later that day against either Pewamo-Westphalia or Schoolcraft.
“They’ve thrown well lately,” Wright said of his two aces. “Those are the ones we’re going to live and die with. We’ve got Leighton Belasco in relief, but those are our two guys. I’m not worried about the quarterfinal; we have to get through the regional final. If I’ve got to throw them both in there, I’ll throw them both.”
Fortunately, the Shelby bats put pressure on Kent City from the start. Garcia led off the game with a walk, stole second and scored on a single by Leighton Belasco. Belasco then himself stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Chase Simon’s single - the first of two hits by Simon.
Kent City struck back in the second inning, taking advantage of a pair of two-out walks to score on a Grant Ferguson line drive single, the Eagles’ first hit.
Once Weiss was out of that spot, though, he cruised, allowing only one more baserunner in his final three innings after his coaches reminded him to go after the Eagles. He pitched five innings and struck out four, allowing only one earned run.
“I could give up five runs, and they’re going to go out and score six,” Weiss said. “Having that in my back pocket, the dugout coaches reminded me that you’re going to give up runs. It happens to everybody, even the best or the worst. They all give up runs, and that means we’re going to score...It just changed my momentum and focus for the game completely.”
“It was a fairly tight (strike zone) - I don’t want to say a small zone, but he didn’t give the corners,” Wright said. “I think Trevor at times almost gave them too much respect. That’s why I said, ‘Hey, go hard, middle-middle, and let’s see if they can hurt us.’”
Shelby’s offense, meanwhile, was far from finished, taking advantage of an Eagle error to score the go-ahead run in the third. Eli Kelley’s opposite-field line-drive single added another run to make it 4-2. They added two more runs in the fourth on Evan Waller’s RBI single and Kelley legging out a Kent City error.
Even though it didn’t score on a Simon hit, Wright was as pleased as any at-bat with Simon’s last one in the sixth. Up with two in scoring position and one out, Simon calmly put the ball in play for a run-scoring groundout, adding more insurance for the Tigers.
“That’s just good hitting,” Wright said.
In addition to Simon’s two hits, Waller also had a pair of knocks. Simon scored two runs and drove in two more.
Shelby’s win was its 30th of the season, a mark Wright said only two other Tiger teams have ever achieved. It also marks their first trip to the regional finals since Wright’s only regional championship team in 2010.
It’ll be a tough matchup with Kalamazoo Christian, a fixture in the regional round, but Wright has his team playing with supreme confidence.
“They’re a good program,” Wright said of the Comets. “They always are. But we’re not going to go there in awe. That’s something we’ll talk about for two days, is that we’re as good as they are. We have to believe in that.”
