Hot Stove baseball: Navy beats Rangers in all North Ridgeville Class H semifinals

ALLIANCE — North Ridgeville chose its matchup and North Ridgevile Navy made the Rangers pay. Navy's Laszlo Baron delivered a two-out double in the top of the sixth that gave his team its first lead as it held on to beat the Rangers 7-6 in the Hot Stove Class H (ages 9-10) state semifinals at Butler Rodman Park on Saturday. The Rangers were an out away from advancing and elected to intentionally walk Luka Heath and pitch to Baron, who struck out during his first two plate appearances. "He has been working on that all season," Navy coach Anthony Maimone said. "He's had a couple of big hits for us, but today was the biggest one, and it could not have happened to a nicer kid. He steps up and he plays the game the right way. He tries to make sure he's doing what he's supposed to do and he did that today. He put the bat on the ball and it dropped in for a double." Navy will face either the Medina Swarm or Cloverleaf Colts in the Class H state championship scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today. The Rangers did not trail until Baron's double. They took a 1-0 lead in the first, a 4-1 lead in the fourth and a 5-4 lead in the fifth. However, every time they scored, Navy answered in the next at-bat. "Everybody showed up today," Maimone said. "It's plain and simple. They came to play baseball. We knew this was going to be a tough game because this was the third time playing that team. We won one before, we lost one before so we knew this team really well. We knew they'd be aggressive, show up and play great baseball. We played almost mistake-free the whole game. It was a great game." The Rangers got a big game from Brody Sowders, who delivered at the plate and on the mound. He drove in three runs, each time breaking a tie score, with a 1-for-2 day, including a fielder's choice and a sacrifice. On the mound, he was nearly unstoppable. Sowders came in with two outs in the second and pitched the remainder of the way. He struck out nine and got out of the sixth on what would have been his final batter faced, as he had hit his maximum pitch count. "Brody is probably one of the most even-keeled kids I have," Rangers coach Graig Zaremba said. "Even if one or two at-bats go wrong for him out there, he's always moving on to the next one or the next pitch. It can be tough with nine or 10-year-olds, who live and die with every ball or strike, or every error. He'll always just move on to the next pitch, next at-bat or the next batter. He's really, really consistent out there and he's one of the best overall athletes we have. I can always rely on him in a big game." Navy answered every time the Rangers took the lead. Navy's biggest rally came in the fifth, when it looked as if the Rangers were going to take control. However, three straight hitters started a rally, highlighted by a two-run double from Charles Reynolds that cut the Rangers' lead to 4-3. Reynolds tied the game when he scored on Mickey Cacho's single. However, the Rangers took a 5-4 lead on Sowders' sacrifice. A wild pitch in the sixth tied it at 5, setting up Baron's heroics. "I'm super proud of this team," Zaremba said. "They're upset now because they had high hopes with how the regular season went. But to be in a class of about 30 teams and for two North Ridgeville teams to be one of the last four teams here makes me really proud for them, their friends and the city of North Ridgeville in general." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.