KALIDA – Columbus Grove moved one step closer to an outright Putnam County League championship on Tuesday night as they defeated host Kalida 6-3 at Holy Name Ballpark to secure at worst a share of the conference crown.
Bulldog hurler Shep Halker, fresh off a save in a win over county rival Leipsic on Monday started on the mound for Columbus Grove and continued his fantastic season as he carved a path through the Wildcat lineup into the fourth without allowing a hit or runner to reach base.
Unfortunately for Kalida starter Carson Klausing things didn’t start as well as he surrendered a pair of singles and a bases loaded situation in the first before getting out of trouble with a pickoff at third by catcher Gabe Roof and a ground ball out to keep the game scoreless.
Klausing worked his way through the second frame with just a walk allowed but was struck by trouble again in the third when a one out walk turned into the first run of the game on a two out double from Taylor Schroeder to push the guests ahead 1-0.
Drew Buss reached on an error to begin the home fourth for Kalida for the first Wildcat to reach the bases and was quickly moved to third on the first home hit of the game, a single by Jaden Smith that helped set up a bases loaded situation before Halker settled down and kept the game 1-0 with a strikeout of Grant Vorst.
Working against Klausing in the fifth the Grove bats opened with a single from Luke Otto and forced Wildcat coach Chad Ehrnsberger to make a move to his bullpen in favor of reliever Drew Buss.
Four singles and an error as well as a double by Taylor Schroeder opened the gates for the visiting squad in the inning on the way to taking a 5-0 lead in a frame that saw every Grove hitter approach the plate.
Kalida’s biggest inning came in the bottom of the sixth against Halker when a trio of runs came across on the same play. Working with the bases loaded, a wild pitch and a pair of errors by the Grove defense brought across Buss, Justin Siebeneck, and Jaden Smith to cut the deficit to 5-3 before the inning came to an end with the tying run stuck at first.
Jaden Smith tossed the last two innings for Kalida and was tagged for the final run of the evening thanks to an RBI single by Brenton Renner.
Shep Halker improved to 4-1 on the season with seven innings of work and 102 pitches that saw the Bulldog junior give up four hits and three unearned runs while walking two, and striking out six. Defensively the Bulldogs committed seven errors in the game.
“Shep was his usual self on the mound, he was efficient and did a great job of keeping his composure when things got sloppy in the sixth” said Grove boss Brayden Sautter.
Carson Klausing (3-2) was saddled with the loss for Kalida as he tossed four innings and gave up a pair of runs on four hits and four walks while striking out and hitting one batter each.
Columbus Grove (15-4, 6-0) will look to close out the outright league crown on Saturday afternoon when they travel to Fort Jennings. Next for the Bulldogs is a Wednesday trip to Delphos to battle Jefferson in NWC play, and a pair of non-league road games against Lima Senior and Wapak on Thursday and Friday respectively.
Kalida falls to 12-9 overall and sees their PCL record slip to 3-3. Wednesday evening the Wildcats will host Lima Central Catholic before traveling to finish up conference play on Thursday at Continental.
Sautter opined on his teams performance “I thought overall we played pretty well, our infield let us down with some sloppy play but good teams are able to persevere and fight through adversity. I’m really pleased with the effort my guys showed tonight”.