High school baseball: Amherst's Cael Charles outduels North Ridgeville's Ryan Anderson in 1-0 win

AMHERST — The Amherst baseball team did just enough to keep its Southwestern Conference win streak alive Wednesday afternoon as the Comets outdueled North Ridgeville 1-0. Amherst (15-1, 9-0 SWC) scored the game's only run in the bottom of the fifth inning. Senior center fielder Tyler Denn scored on a fielder's choice off the bat of junior right fielder Nick Wilkinson. Denn scored from third base when a ground ball took a high bounce, beating the throw home from junior shortstop Emmanuel Ramos. Denn's run provided just enough offense for junior pitcher Cael Charles, who improved to 6-0 as he allowed just two hits and finished with 10 strikeouts while giving up three walks. Charles needed his best stuff as junior left-hander Ryan Anderson was nearly as effective for North Ridgeville (10-8, 8-3). Anderson scattered five hits while striking out two and walking a pair. "We were off for a week, so obviously a little rusty here, but I was ready," Charles said. "I came in mentally prepared. It took the day to get mentally ready. It showed out there. "I'm usually fastball-heavy, but I went to offspeed today. It seemed to work very well. My back started to hurt really bad so I went to more offspeed. It worked. I mixed in some fastballs with that and it worked. I had some help defensively from my outfielders." Wilkinson made a nice throw from right field in the top of the fifth when he cut down senior Carter Clark attempting to stretch a single into a double. Senior left fielder Cole Marquez made a great diving catch of a sinking line drive to rob sophomore Matthew Flesher leading off the seventh. The victory extended Amherst's SWC win streak to 23, dating to the beginning of the 2025 season. "We knew that these two games were probably going to be close so we knew that we were going to have to scratch," Amherst coach Matt Rositano said. "We hadn't played in eight days so like I told the guys, I'm going to chalk a little bit of it offensively to rust. But when Cael's on the mound pitching like that, you get him one run, that's all he needs. In his last couple of starts he's been in command. He's getting his offspeed over for strikes now. When he's able to throw that slider and curve for strikes, to pair with his 91-93 mph fastball, that makes it really tough on hitters, especially when he is in the zone like he was today." It wasn't easy, for either Charles or Anderson. Charles needed 107 pitches for the win. A total of 64 were strikes. Anderson was particularly sharp, throwing 49 of his 75 pitches for strikes. "I thought that their pitcher did a great job," Rositano said. "He kept us off-balance. It was a bit uncharacteristic of us. A lot of times we were undisciplined at the plate, but like I said I'm going to chalk a little bit of that up to rust since we hadn't played in eight days. "It was a scheduling anomaly because they had prom this past weekend." Denn opened the fifth with a full-count walk. Denn was then awarded second when Anderson balked with Marquez at the plate. Marquez then sacrificed Denn to third, setting the stage for Wilkinson's winning fielder's choice. "Pitching and defense, I thought we were outstanding," Rositano said. "Offensively, like I said, I think we were rusty after being off for a week. Hopefully, we knocked off that rust so that we're ready to face them again (today)." North Ridgeville coach Matt Ponting was disappointed with the loss, but not at all with the effort. "All I can talk about is Ryan Anderson," Ponting said. "To pitch that kind of game against that lineup is as good as you can do. We gave them one. Otherwise it's a 0-0 game. I'm so impressed and proud of that guy. He's a competitor. He did exactly what the game plan was. He executed pitches and then you see the adrenaline of him coming off the field and being a leader. It's just great stuff. "Charles pitched very tough, but I did think that we did a great job competing and making his pitch count go up. Hats off to him to finish that game as a bulldog, but we thought we did well to make him work for every out he got." Anderson relinquished just three hits over his final five innings of work after giving up hits to Wilkinson and Cooper Bingham in the first inning. Wilkinson attempted to score from second on Bingham's single to left, but was thrown out at home. "It came down to who hit the ball," Anderson said. "It was a pitchers duel from the get-go. They ended up making the little plays. We had a little mistake, but again you're not going to win with zero runs. I think we all need to hit a little better. "They're a great team. Well-coached. Do all the right things. The fact that we lost 1-0 to a state runner-up who definitely is going to be in the Final Four is definitely something positive we can look at. We came up just short." Contact Paul Heyse at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.