Baseball: Elyria Catholic scores early and often ... and needs every one of the runs

ELYRIA — Good things come to those who wait. When Elyria Catholic took the field Friday, it was down three runs from a game with Holy Name that started March 31 before being wiped out by rain. The Panthers erased the deficit with five runs in the bottom of the fist, scored in every inning, but still had to hold on for dear life in the seventh for a 13-11 North Coast Conference win over the Green Wave. "We talked about not being disappointed that we were down three runs when we took the field," Panthers coach Bruce Lisicky said. "Let's just work on getting one or two runs here or there, and we saw how that worked out." The first four batters of the game for EC found their way on base and came around to score. Luke Doss and Noah Willett had infield singles while Zachariah Gaines walked to load the bases. Izaiah Amarise walked in the first run, Ryan White drove in a pair with a single to left, JoJo Jancsura sent a run home with a groundball to second and Ryan Gampher singled through the middle to give the Panthers a 5-3 lead. Elyria Catholic (7-2, 3-1) continued to add to its lead, scoring single runs in the second and third on an Amarise double and a Jancsura single and another three runs in the fourth. Amarise, who went 2-for-3 with three RBIs, singled in a run in the fourth right after Zachariah Gaines trotted home on a throwing error while stealing third after walking. The final run to go up 10-6 came on a Brayden Winter sacrifice fly to deep left. It really looked like EC had put away the game in the bottom of the sixth with another three runs on a run-scoring hit by Winter, a double from Ryan White and a Jancsura sacrifice fly to left to go up 13-6. Frankie Germano got through the first four innings for EC before Amarise took over, striking out six in the fifth and sixth innings. Amarise started the seventh with a walk and that brought Ayden Patton into the game. He became a hard-luck pitcher as the Green Wave kept scoring runs with the ball never leaving the infield. First, there was a catcher's interference call followed by two infield singles with a run coming home. Chance Apathy then lined a single off Patton's leg with the ball dribbling to the empty spot at shortstop, sending home a pair of runners to cut the lead to 13-10. After back-to-back strikeouts by Patton, another infield hit reloaded the bases and a run came home when Drew Koch was hit by a pitch. Another walk sent home a run, bringing Jancsura on to face Luke Hudak. He hit a grounder to second that turned into a bang-bang play at first to end the game. "It was important for us to score in every inning," Lisicky said. "We talk about mental toughness all the time, Ayden has been great this year and they weren't squaring up the ball on him, but it was frustrating." Contact James Brady at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.