State baseball semifinal: Jacob Krausher rebounds from shaky start, gives Sailors a chance

AKRON — Vermilion senior Jacob Krausher did in his final high school game what he'd done his entire Sailors career. He put his team in a position to win. Although Vermilion fell short of its goal of playing for a state title, losing a 4-3 heartbreaker to Archbishop Hoban in the Division II state semifinal Friday evening at Canal Park, it was the pitching of Krausher that allowed Vermilion (26-7) to battle until the final out. "He's tough, he kept us in the game like he always does," Vermilion coach Jeff Keck said. Hoban scored three runs on just one hit in the first inning. Krausher settled down and didn't allow another Knights runner to reach scoring position until the sixth inning, when they scored what proved to be the winning run. "You've just got to push through it sometimes. You've just got to focus on your stuff," Krausher said. "The first inning I had the butterflies in the my stomach, but then I think I settled in a little bit more. "Hoban's seen velocity before so I just had to commit to my stuff, fastballs, sliders, change-ups and everything to keep them off-balance." Although four of Hoban's first five batters reached base — walk, error, triple, hit batter — Keck said he never lost faith that Krausher would right the ship. "He's always capable of striking out some guys and getting out of jams, so that was huge," Keck said. With seven strikeouts against Hoban, Krausher finished with 107 in his senior season and 160 in his career. Krausher, who ends the year with a 9-3 record, came into Friday's game with a 0.73 earned run average. Including the three earned runs he allowed against the Knights, he only surrendered 10 this season. "Jacob's been dominating all season long," Vermilion catcher Carter Klausing said. "Jacob just had some first-inning jitters and we had to work out of it. I told him you've got to score runs to win a baseball game, so it was up to the rest of us to get the bats rolling." Krausher, who will pitch just down the road from Canal Park at the University of Akron next season, has been making his mark on the Vermilion record book since 2019, when as a sophomore he pitched the Sailors to a district championship for the first time in 28 years. Now, after tossing a complete game, he's the only pitcher to take the mound for the Sailors in a state tournament game. "Today was the best experience of my life for sure," Krausher said. "I'm going to miss these kids so much. They are my brothers. I am just so sad that it is gone." Batting cleanup, Krausher also did his part at the plate, going 1-for-3 and scoring on a passed ball in the fifth inning to tie the score at 3. "With this team anything was possible," Krausher said. "We were always here to play and we were never out of it." Contact Todd Shapiro at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com