What a shame. Obviously Cain pitched a whale of a game. But whoever pitched for Henderson must have been lights out as well. Not all that often in high school ball are you going to play a 9-inning game and shut out your opponent. Just too many walks and errors at the high school level for this to happen often. Great season for NCC. No all-NKY final this year, so go 'Stangs.

 

Henderson starting pitcher #24 Coursey threw 99 pitches after seven innings and was taken out and #19 Higgs came in to start the eight inning to pitch.

Good season too bad we were looking forward to All Northern Ky Final

Great run by the Breds. Congrats to all of those young men especially the Sr's. Best of luck to all of them.

I heard Henderson had 2 hits.

2 hits 3 errors. NCC only had 4 hits and 3 errors. Pretty sloppy game on both sides but also well pitched on both.

Henderson beats NewCath in bizarre finish

 

Published June 7, 2012 Uncategorized Closed

 

A great pitching duel ended with a bizarre balk as Henderson County beat Newport Central Catholic 1-0 in nine innings in the quarterfinals of the state baseball tournament at Whitaker Bank Ballpark on Thursday night.

Henderson County’s Kaleb Duckworth led off the bottom of the ninth with a double to the wall in left-center. Avery Pitt reached on an error, and Duckworth went to third. With Justin Cessna at the plate, Pitt stole second unchallenged.

Then came the odd finish to a great game.

NewCath pitcher Josh Cain, who went the distance and had blanked the Colonels on two hits to that point, wheeled and fired a pick-off attempt to first, thinking Pitt was still there. The ball whistled past Cain’s first baseman and Duckworth raced home with the winning run on what was officially ruled a balk.

“I was afraid the game would end on something crazy,” Henderson Coach Nathan Isenberg said. “I hated to see the guy (Cain) lose that way, but that’s baseball. We’ll take it.”

Duckworth had the same feelings.

“I didn’t know what he was doing. I guess he forgot Avery stole second. He threw a heck of a game, so I kind of feel sorry for him. But we’ll take it.”

Sam Higgs, who was the winning pitcher in the Colonels’ first-round victory over North Oldham, got another “W” with two innings in relief of starter Marty Coursey. They limited NewCath to 4 hits and combined for 7 strikeouts.

Cain was the hard-luck loser. He went 9 innings, struck out 3 and walked one.

Henderson County, the 2000 state champ, advances to Friday night’s semifinals.

 

http://fieldsnotes.bloginky.com/

Nice run for the Breds. Congratulations on another great season.

Wow. This is a shocker to me. Tough, tough way to lose one under the circumstances. But as much as everyone will carry on about the balk and the crazy last inning. What the heck happened in the other 8 innings of baseball? Who commited the other 2 errors of the game, who or whom couldnt get a sacrifice or squeeze down? I did hear someone question Schulkens strategy, Anybody got names of those guys?

I really do hate to see young kids get the blame in such bad situations but hey they get the glory and we idolize them when they do well, its all part of it like it or not.

 

Nice run for NewCath and its Srs. :thumb:

I may have missed it in another post, but who was the home team?

Wow. This is a shocker to me. Tough, tough way to lose one under the circumstances. But as much as everyone will carry on about the balk and the crazy last inning. What the heck happened in the other 8 innings of baseball? Who commited the other 2 errors of the game, who or whom couldnt get a sacrifice or squeeze down? I did hear someone question Schulkens strategy, Anybody got names of those guys?

I really do hate to see young kids get the blame in such bad situations but hey they get the glory and we idolize them when they do well, its all part of it like it or not.

 

Nice run for NewCath and its Srs. :thumb:

I believe the NCC SS had 2 of the errors (not positive). Not sure who had the third. Like I said the game was pretty sloppy other than the pitching. Henderson had 2nd and 3rd in the 6th with no outs and couldn't cash in. NCC had similar chances.

 

I hope the Henderson offense that showed up against North Oldham shows up tonight.

I may have missed it in another post, but who was the home team?

Henderson

Tough way to lose a game. Congrats to the Breds for making it this far. Hold your heads high, boys - you represented NCC and NKY well.

Tough loss in bizarre fashion. Congrats to NCC on a great run and for representing NKy in the State Tourney.

 

On the ground ball that would have been the 2nd out in the 9th, did the SS boot it and not make a throw? Would the runner on 2B have advanced to 3B if he had made the play cleanly?

 

With respect to walking the #3 batter in the lineup to get to the #4 batter once the #2 batter, who reached on the E, had reached 2B on "defensive indifference" by NCC, that would certainly be the conventional wisdom. Puts a force at all 3 bases & home and brings the X-2-3 DP into play (you can't afford to try to turn 2 up the middle, even if it is hard hit right at the SS or 2B where the failure to turn the DP ends the game and your season).

 

That said, it is not a complete "no-brainer." 1st, you had a 1-1 count on the batter already and with 1B open, you can "nibble" and try to make him hit "your" pitch. 2nd, load the bases and a walk ends the game in another tough fashion with lots of pressure on the P to throw strikes to very likely a very good hitter. 3rd, perhaps Schulkens didn't like what the #4 and #5 batters looked like. Maybe they had hit the ball hard all evening and just made "loud outs," while Cain had had success against the #3 hitter in each of the previous at bats. Just too many unknown variables to 2nd guess the decision not to walk the #3 hitter.

Even if 1st base was occupied, why is he throwing to first?

Cain told me after the game he didn't realize the guy had stolen second and was focused on the batter.

As for the idea of walking Cessna, I asked Schulkens and he said he and his coaches discussed it, but that Cain had gotten out of 2nd and 3rd and 0 out jam in the sixth and as jpa2825 noted it was a 1-1 count on the batter, home plate ump had been giving a few inches outside off the plate all night (a spot both pitchers hit consistently) so it was chance to nibble.

Also, as Schulkens noted, you load the bases then pressure is really on for pitcher to throw strikes.

Right decision to pitch to him IMO.

- Richard Skinner

Tough loss in bizarre fashion. Congrats to NCC on a great run and for representing NKy in the State Tourney.

 

On the ground ball that would have been the 2nd out in the 9th, did the SS boot it and not make a throw? Would the runner on 2B have advanced to 3B if he had made the play cleanly?

 

With respect to walking the #3 batter in the lineup to get to the #4 batter once the #2 batter, who reached on the E, had reached 2B on "defensive indifference" by NCC, that would certainly be the conventional wisdom. Puts a force at all 3 bases & home and brings the X-2-3 DP into play (you can't afford to try to turn 2 up the middle, even if it is hard hit right at the SS or 2B where the failure to turn the DP ends the game and your season).

 

That said, it is not a complete "no-brainer." 1st, you had a 1-1 count on the batter already and with 1B open, you can "nibble" and try to make him hit "your" pitch. 2nd, load the bases and a walk ends the game in another tough fashion with lots of pressure on the P to throw strikes to very likely a very good hitter. 3rd, perhaps Schulkens didn't like what the #4 and #5 batters looked like. Maybe they had hit the ball hard all evening and just made "loud outs," while Cain had had success against the #3 hitter in each of the previous at bats. Just too many unknown variables to 2nd guess the decision not to walk the #3 hitter.

The runner was advancing already. The Henderson radio crew commented that Duckworth running in front of the SS could have played a part in the error.

 

I still say you have to walk Cessna with first open. He hadn't done much up to that point but he's close to a .500 hitter on the year getting his 4th look at a tiring Cain.