Division I sectional baseball: Midview can't sustain fast start, falls to defending district champion North Royalton

NORTH ROYALTON — Midview had defending district champion North Royalton on the ropes early in Thursday's Division I sectional final but, in the end, the Bears found a way to claw out a win. No. 10 seed North Royalton scored a pair of unearned runs in the fifth inning to defeat Midview 4-2 and advance to the district semifinals where it will face Wadsworth. No. 25 seed Midview bowed out of the tournament with an 11-15 record. "After the game all of the coaches made sure the team knew how proud we were of them and reminded them to keep their heads up," Midview coach Ryan Morgan said. "One ball that goes in a different direction and we're still playing baseball." The Middies took a 2-0 lead in a wild and wacky first inning thanks in large part to three North Royalton errors. Mateo Lopez led off the game by reaching base on an error and scored on a Sam Calcut fielder's choice. With the bases loaded and one out, Michael Lopez hit a soft grounder to Bears pitcher Brady Sasse, a University of Toledo commit. Sasse threw home to get the force at the plate but catcher Patrick Farrell, in an attempt to complete the double play, hit Lopez in the back with his throw to first, allowing Calcut to score. Middies second baseman Camden Smith was hit by a pitch to reload the bases but Midview was unable to do any further damage. Sasse was able to take control with the help of the Bears defense that turned two double plays to hold the Middies scoreless the rest of the way. "We told the guys to be aggressive and put the ball in play and that's what we did, which allowed us to capitalize on some of their mistakes," Morgan said. "If we could have got another big hit there it really would have opened things up and put the pressure on them, but just being able to get two in the first was huge." The Bears (15-13) answered with two runs in their half of the first inning on back-to-back RBI singles from Chris Domke and A.J. Dezzuti off Midview starter David Moore. Moore quickly settled down to retire 11 of the next 13 batters. "David has pitched his butt off the entire season. He's our bulldog," Morgan said. "I thought he had stuff going today. They had a couple hits today in the first inning but he found his groove and one play changed the complexity of the game." After hitting back-to-back two-out singles, Grady Baugh and Farrell scored on an error with two outs in the fifth inning to give the Bears their margin of victory. Midview attempted to rally in the seventh when Spencer Mueller hit a two-out single and Zak Jockel walked, but Sasse was able to hold on to record the complete game. After starting the season 5-11, the Middies rallied to play above .500 in May, going 6-4. "It wasn't our greatest start to the season, but toward the end we continued to come together game after game," Moore said. "We got our first playoff win (Tuesday against Parma) and we came here knowing North Royalton is a great team. We were together the whole time but it just didn't go our way." Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.