BASEBALL: Tipton wins regional

By BRYAN GASKINS
Tribune sportswriter

June 03, 2008 11:19 pm

— DELPHI — Tipton and Delphi split a pair of Hoosier Conference baseball games during the regular season.
Tipton took the rubber match between the teams Tuesday night and, more importantly, advanced another step in the state tournament series.
Justin Reese fired a three-hitter to lead the Blue Devils past the Oracles 10-0 in six innings in a Class 2A regional game.
The Blue Devils, who won their first sectional championship of the class tournament era last week, advance to play in the LaVille Semistate on Saturday where they will battle for a ticket to the state finals. Tipton (14-10) will face either Cass or Fort Wayne Bishop Luers in the semifinal round of the four-team semistate.
“It feels awesome,” Reese said. “We’ve been waiting for this all season. … We’re coming along. We’re hitting really well and our defense is phenomenal.”
Reese made it easy for his defense in the regional game. The Blue Devil ace allowed just three singles, struck out 10 and walked only one — an impressive encore to a 4-3 win over the Oracles in the regular season.
“Tip your hats off to Reese. That’s the first thing I told the guys,” Delphi coach Pat Lowrey said. “We thought we came in with a pretty good game plan on him and to his credit and the coaching staff’s credit, they flipped the switch on us. He was primarily a fastball pitcher the first time we faced him and he really struggled with his off-speed. [Tuesday], he threw his curveball in fastball counts and to his credit, he shut us down.”
Reese held the Oracles hitless over the final four innings and retired the final 10 batters he faced — six by strikeouts.
“I felt awesome,” said Reese, who owns a 6-1 record. “I just wanted to hit the outside corners with every pitch — just not let them get a hold of anything. Let ’em reach.”
The Blue Devils gave Reese plenty of offensive support. They finished with 11 hits, including six extra-base hits. Blake Langley and Reese cracked home runs to highlight the heavy hitting.
“Our bats have really come alive,” Tipton coach Brandon Smith said. “The last two, three weeks of the season, we’ve really hit the ball hard. The middle of our order is just crushing the ball.”
Tipton scored four runs in the second inning to put Delphi (22-9) on the ropes. Tipton put its first four batters on base in the inning for a 1-0 lead, but Delphi pitcher Kyle Bender followed with two straight strikeouts. Bender looked ready to escape the jam when he put Greg Dickey in a 0-2 hole, but the Blue Devils’ leadoff hitter followed with a two-run single to left-center. Levi Bess followed with an infield single to score another run.
Langley led off the fourth with a homer to right field to knock Bender from the game. Langley went homerless in the regular season, but the Blue Devils’ No. 8 hitter has four homers in three tournament games — and all four have been leadoff shots.
Tipton added five runs in the sixth inning off Delphi relief pitcher Andrew Cebulla to complete the scoring. Bess had a two-run double, Nate Whisler scored on a wild pitch and Reese cracked his team-best ninth round-tripper of the season — a two-run shot to left-center that gave the Blue Devils a 10-run lead and allowed them to end the game early once Reese retired the Oracles in order in the bottom of the sixth.
Bess went 3-for-4 with a double and three RBI to lead the winners. Colin Warner and Jamey Reese each went 2-for-3 with a double and Evan Bowman also had a double.
“I’m just happy for our kids,” Smith said. “The seniors are determined — they are not ready to be done.”

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