District Baseball: North Ridgeville can't add to special year

BEREA — The Class of 2023 will always be remembered as the group that ended North Ridgeville's 41-year conference title drought. Unfortunately for the Rangers, they won't have the chance to put any additional hardware in the trophy case. North Ridgeville ace Jake Boynar engaged in a five-inning pitcher's duel with Strongsville sophomore Jude Fisher before the Mustangs got on the board with two runs in the sixth, then broke the game open with five in the seventh on their way to a 7-0 win in a Division I district semifinal Tuesday at Fisher Field on the campus of Baldwin Wallace University. The Rangers' inability to score a run after getting runners in scoring position in the third and fourth innings and leaving the bases loaded in the fifth was the undoing for a group of 13 seniors that won 39 games over the last two seasons. "After the game I just told all of them that we love them," North Ridgeville coach Matt Ponting said. "This was a special group. Our 13 seniors led us to a historic season. We were on the other side of those close plays all season, but it just happened to get us today." The No. 2-seeded Rangers (19-7) managed only two hits off Fisher. A single from Boynar in the third and a single from second baseman Adam Bright an inning later. Boynar retired 16 of the first 17 Mustangs he faced until senior left fielder Jimmy Byrne drew a one-out walk to start the sixth-inning rally. Byrne stole second, advanced to third on an error and scored when senior center fielder Brandon Lucek hit a high chopper to third for an infield single, Strongsville's first hit of the game. Three batters later Brady Eckert drew a bases-loaded walk to make the score 2-0. "When we got the bases loaded in the fifth with one out I got excited, but their pitcher came through for them and got out of it," Boynar said. "This isn't the way we wanted it to end but this was the best North Ridgeville team in a long time. I don't think we've even made it to district semifinals in like 20 years. We finished with 19 wins, we didn't get to 20 but this was a special group." The seventh-seeded Mustangs sent eight men to the plate in the seventh against reliever Gannon Padgett, with the big hit coming off the bat of Keegan Cubbison, whose two-out double scored Byrne and Brett Kappel. The Mustangs, 16-14, advance to Thursday's district semifinal. Strongsville's regular-season record was deceiving, as six of its losses came against teams that were ranked in top 10 in the final Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Division I poll. Strongsville is 5-0 this year against Southwestern Conference teams. Fisher pitched a complete game, striking out three and walking three. "Fisher was amazing today," Strongsville coach Doug Cicerchi said. "He was our Game 1 starter against Moeller and he kept pitching conference games all year. We're a pitching and defense team, we don't have a lot of margin for error and the experience he had this year prepared him for this game today." For Cicerchi, the key to the game was Fisher getting out of the bases-loaded jam in the fifth. "If they score a run there, I'm not gonna say we don't win," Cicerchi said. "But it's a totally different game and you have no idea how it would end up shaking out. The game had that feel of the first team to get on the board was probably going to be in good shape." Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.