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Jays win it on the fly

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SOUTH CENTRE TWP. — The bottom of Central Columbia’s batting order has been coming up clutch in recent weeks and Monday’s Class 3A baseball state playoff opener proved to be no different.

With its game against Scranton Prep tied in the home half of the seventh, No. 8 hitter Dylan Groshek tripled to left and scored one pitch later when Jansen Sarisky hit a sacrifice fly to right to lift the Blue Jays to a 5-4 win.

Central (18-1) advances to play Lancaster Catholic on Thursday in the quarterfinals at a place and time to be determined.

“We didn’t want our season to end and tried so hard to get here,” Groshek said. “We won the district championship and haven’t done that in so long and my stomach was hurting with so much adrenaline.

“I was scared [going up to the plate] because I didn’t want to let the team down, but I didn’t want to do too much at the same time.”

Instead, the senior hit the ball past Roman Valvano, who dove for the ball rather than play it in front of him. The Cavaliers added to the pressure of freshman Sarisky going to the plate, calling a mound visit for starter Brian Walsh and drawing the infield in.

Blue Jays coach Kirk Seesholtz didn’t get a sense of nervousness from Sarisky with the game on the line.

“He was thinking a few crazy things, and I got him thinking about one simple thing — the task at hand. Other than that, he was calm,” Seesholtz said. “I told him that he gets one pitch and if he lays it in there, to drive it and he did just that.”

Nest rattled

The same couldn’t have been said about the Blue Jays collectively early in the game.

Two errors on the same play led to two first-inning Cavalier runs. The Blue Jays attempted to get leadoff hitter Noah Sorenson out at second but had a foot off the bag before overthrowing to first, allowing Zander Condeelis to also get in scoring position. The pair scored on Michael Golay’s single down the left-field line.

Cade Davis didn’t allow another run, facing the minimum from the second through fifth innings. He struck out six and walked two in five innings of work. He also got the Cavaliers to bounce into double plays in the second and third.

“I was seeing them chase the ball a lot and I started working outside the zone a little more,” Davis said. “I was letting them swing at stuff that I didn’t have to throw in the zone and just allowed them to get themselves out.”

Seesholtz thinks those same nerves showed up in the sixth when the Jays turned to Trystan Crawford with a 3-2 lead.

“We didn’t start off the way we wanted, that’s for certain,” Seesholtz said. “... Trystan came in and the same thing kind of happened again and I think a little bit of that might be nerves of being state playoffs and stuff like that.”

Sorenson led off the sixth with a hit by pitch and Cavaliers’ No. 2 and 3 hitters, Condeelis and Walsh hit back-to-back doubles to give Scranton Prep its lead back, 4-3.

Crawford calmed down from that point, striking out the next three hitters. Five of his six outs came via the punchout to earn the winning decision.

The Cavaliers did put pressure on Crawford in the seventh. Andrew Durkin led the frame off with a single and worked his way to third with only one away. Crawford worked out of the jam with a strikeout and groundout.

Down, not out

“Early on, we were a little nervous coming into a state game. We haven’t won one in a little while,” Davis said. “As the game went on, we settled in and played our game, fought back and it was really big.”

Look no further than what the Jays did at the plate.

Central was timing Cavaliers’ pitcher Walsh all afternoon, just striking out twice. Walsh was helped out by some web gems like a sliding catch by right fielder Kyle Skutack and a diving grab by third baseman Condeelis on back-to-back at-bats in the third.

The Blue Jays, though, did get a break on a double by Crawford that was nearly snagged by Skutack on a diving attempt. Crawford scored on a single by Davis — who was thrown out at second on the play — to left-center in the next at-bat.

The Jays took their first lead of the contest when Logan Welkom gave the several hundred in attendance something to cheer for with a leadoff triple to right in the fifth. Brody Beaver drove him in with a bloop single to right before coming around on a sacrifice bunt and infield error.

They tied the game in the sixth with Crawford singling, stealing second, and scoring on an infield throwing error.

Walsh went the distance, with his aggressiveness keeping his pitch count at 82 pitches. He was helped by a controversial double play that was called due to interference.

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