High school baseball: Lorain County all-stars have fun despite wet conditions, smoky air and final score

AKRON — It was an interesting final day on the diamond for Lorain County players Wednesday at the Northeast Ohio Baseball Coaches Association All-Star game at Canal Park. In a game that started two hours late due to Tuesday's heavy rain, Keystone senior Jack Sivec scored the only run for the Navy all-star team in a 4-1 loss to the Red all-stars. The Navy team featured 13 Lorain County players, while the Red team was comprised of players from Cuyahoga County. Sivec walked with two outs in the second inning, stole second and advanced to third on a single by Lorain's Anthony Lorenzo. With runners on the corners, an errant pickoff throw that was bobbled at first allowed Sivec to come home with the first run of the game. "This is a beautiful ballpark," Sivec said of playing at the home of the Akron RubberDucks. "It was a great experience except for all of the smoke." Despite the smoky haze hanging over all of Northeast Ohio from Canadian wildfires, the decision was made to proceed with Wednesday's game despite the cancellation of numerous local sporting events, as well as the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss concert at nearby Blossom Music Center. "We wanted to play, obviously, but ultimately the decision was up to Akron and the RubberDucks management," said Firelands coach Dan Ransom, who was one of the coaches of the Navy all-stars and is also the vice president of the NEOBCA. "This situation is all new for all of us, there was really never any though of canceling but we were managing the atmospheric conditions." The haze didn't see to affect Avon's Gavin Ehrhardt, who singled in both of his at-bats. Ehrhardt and St. Edward's Carter Potts were the only players with multihit games. "I had a great time today," Ehrhardt said. "I was with a great team in a beautiful park. I wasn't thinking about anything, I was just going out there and hitting. When you can come out and play with great players that are all at the same level you can just go out and have fun." Five Lorain County pitchers — Amherst's Martin Polonkay and Cam Gendics, Firelands' Silas Skovr, Avon Lake's C.J. Gurule and North Ridgeville's Jake Boynar — each pitched a shutout inning. The Navy team also included all-stars from Mayfield, North Olmsted, North Royalton and Rocky River and due to a shortage of available pitchers two Navy all-stars, Rocky River's Hudson Wissman and North Royalton Dylan Crowe, pitched the last two innings for the Red team. The arms shortage created what was likely an NEOBCA All-Star game first as Crowe pitched the sixth inning for both teams and finished as the game's winning and losing pitcher. Brush seniors Isaiah Smith and Dimario Ballom led off the sixth inning with walks off Crowe to ignite the Red's four-run rally. The game was stopped due to a 1:50 time limit in the middle of the top half of the seventh inning with the final stats reverting to six complete innings. Lorain County players accounted for all four Navy hits. Elyria Catholic's Dominic Calanni singled and stole second in the sixth inning. "This was a fun experience today, not too make kids get to come out here and play in a minor league ballpark like this," said Lorenzo, who was joined on the Navy team by his Lorain teammate Xavier Palos and two of the Titans' coaches, Brad Ternes and Cody Kya. "I knew some of these guys from summer ball but it was fun meeting a lot of new people from different cities." Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.