Summer Baseball: Austin Wolf helps Avon past Avon Lake

AVON LAKE — Austin Wolf has been playing baseball all summer and was happy to have a chance to reunite with his high school teammates Monday. Wolf, Avon's soon-to-be-junior center fielder, collected three hits and drove in three runs in leading the Eagles past their biggest rivals, Avon Lake, 8-5 in the first round of the Amherst Summer Baseball Classic. "It's good to be back with the boys I've grown up with," said Wolf. "Playing with them since we were young, it's just like family, I guess you could say. It always feels nice to beat Avon Lake." It was a hotly contested game tied at 5 through six innings, but Avon's Sam Griffiths, who had three hits, including an RBI triple, led off the top of the seventh with a single to right-center field. He moved up on a wild pitch and advanced to third on Reece Gomez's bunt single. Owen Murphy walked to load the bases, and Cameron Ocepek drove in Griffiths with a single. Wolf drove in two more with a single past the diving Juewlius Ross at short. That was all the Eagles needed to settle the outcome once and for all. Wyatt Sgro threw a one-two-three bottom of the seventh inning to preserve the win, striking out two. Aidan Bauer was credited with the win, pitching two innings and limiting the Shoremen to two runs, one unearned. "I think I had some good approaches at the plate," Wolf said. "I really don't like to think about how I did, I just want to help the team win. We bounced back. We got down, got up, got down and came out on top." "He's a guy that just works hard every single day, whether he's in the weight room or at baseball practice," said Avon coach Pat Scholla. "He deserves everything he got (Monday) and he's a kid that will love this moment, flush it and get ready for Wednesday." The game was tied at 1 after one inning, then Avon trailed 2-1 after two and 4-3 after five. The Eagles scored twice in the sixth before rallying for three in the seventh to pull away. Damian Rodriguez had an RBI hit. Murphy walked three times and scored twice. Lucas Pintar and Charlie Brunner also had hits for Avon. "This tournament is awesome because it's an opportunity for us to see some young guys (play)," said Scholla. "Our word for this game was just 'poise,' control what we can control. We had a lot of poise and the young guys just showed up." For Avon Lake, Tyler Fenton drove in a run and had a hit. Jacob Perry doubled and scored a run. Avery Evans had a sacrifice fly, and Chase Hamilton stole home on a successful double steal in the sixth inning. "Ultimately, our goal for this week is to give a lot of guys an opportunity to play and show us what they can do," said Avon Lake coach Kevin Collins. "It's about reps. We have no returning varsity guys playing (Monday) so it's a chance to see some guys we haven't really gotten to see a lot. That's what's exciting as coaches. "I thought we competed for five innings. That's what we just talked about. You've got to finish. I thought we had some great at-bats. It's the one thing we've talked about is sacrificing yourself to get runs in. I thought we did that. We hit a couple of really hard balls to right field and (Avon) made some good plays. Our hitting approach was really good." Both teams will be back in action Wednesday. Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or at timothygeb@msn.com.