High school baseball: Amherst shuts down Avon to advance to semifinals of Adrian Abrahamowicz Summer Classic

AMHERST — Eli Toyoda's sacrifices were not in vain. The sophomore delivered two perfect sacrifice bunts to put Amherst in position to strike first then break things open on the way to an 8-0 win over Avon in the final group stage game of theAdrian Abrahamowicz Summer Classic on Friday at Amherst High School. "We always play better with the lead so if we can score first that's to our advantage," Amherst coach Matt Rositano said. "I thought the player of the game was Eli Toyoda. First two at-bats he gets down sac bunts to move guys in scoring position to give us a chance to get that three-run lead. All three runners he moved over ended up scoring, so that's a great job by him, a sophomore who's getting his first varsity experience." Amherst completed a 3-0 run through its group to take a top seed into the semifinals. The Comets will host Rocky River, runner-up of the other group, Saturday at 1 p.m. Avon, Midview and Brookside all entered Friday with a chance to advance, but Midview took care of business with a 3-1 win over Brookside to secure a date with North Ridgeville, which will host the second semifinal Saturday at noon. The championship is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at Amherst. The Eagles, who needed the Middies to lose in order to advance, were unable to get the bats going against a strong Amherst trio. Alex Lakner pitched four innings, allowing just two hits, two walks and a hit batter while striking out five. "We battled," Avon coach John Rosser said. "We saw some really good at-bats. For being how young they are and seeing some of the experience Amherst had coming against us I thought we played pretty well. I told them, just take one thing out of these last three days, especially today, and just keep moving forward with it." Logan Banyas and Cam Rios combined for three shutout innings with the only baserunner coming on a hit batter by Rios in the seventh. Banyas struck out three and Rios two. At one point, the Amherst trio retired 11 straight batters and 12 of the final 13. "Once we get a lead, if our pitchers are throwing strikes they can be really good," Rositano said. "I thought Lakner, Banyas and Rios did a great job today. The whole week, we've played three games and gave up an unearned run against Midview on Monday and nobody has scored on us since. Our pitching has been fantastic this week." Avon's best chance to get on the board came in the third, when Damien Rodriguez and Jensen Petro had hits and Lucas Pinter drew a walk to load the bases with nobody out. Banyas ended the threat, however, with a strikeout of Noah Martin. Amherst responded with four runs on five hits and a walk in the third, punctuated by an RBI single from Caleb Melendez. Jacob Schliesser followed that up with an RBI double and Dylan Coughlin drove him in with a single to left. "I was feeling really confident," Melendez said. "I had a good game earlier in the week. I was seeing the ball well, putting the ball in play. I was hitting the ball hard, so I knew once he got into scoring position after Toyoda got that bunt down I could get him in. It feels good to advance. This is nothing new to us, but it's the same mentality, win or go home, so you've got to fight." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.