Geneva goes OT for victory

BRUCE McCLIMANS
Star Beacon

May 09, 2008 02:30 am

— ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — What Edgewood and Geneva couldn’t finish in seven innings took on the look of a major-league ballgame in the fact it went the full nine innings.
But when it all came down to the end a clutch double by Brian Fink that plated Jimmy Doherty with the tying run and a sacrifice fly by Jordan Harchalk sent the Eagles home with a 9-8 victory over the Warriors Thursday in Northeastern Conference action at Higgins Field.
In a game that scheduled to be played in Geneva was switched to Edgewood because of poor field conditions in Geneva, but the Eagles played like it was home game, anyway.
Down 6-3 in the sixth Edgewood (13-7, 4-6) staged a late rally as they it the bases with two outs as Jesse Long came through with a single to plate Mike Schupska and Nick Scott after Devon Anderson had driven in another run via a groundout.
In the seventh, Shupska scored Tom Dunham, who reached on an infield error earlier, with a ringing double, but the Eagles answered the bell in their half of the seventh as Fink (4-5, 4 RBI, 2 runs) singled home Doherty, who had tripled to start the inning.
In the ninth, Greg Motter walked with one out. He then went to third when Harchalk, on a ground ball to him, decided to go to second base to force the runner but he threw the ball into center field, putting runners on first and third. One out later, Schupska stepped up and singled to score Motter, making it 8-7, Warriors.
But Geneva (11-6, 7-4) wasn’t about to be denied as Doherty walked and was sacrificed to second and tied the game on a double by Fink, who went to third on the throw. Harchalk then sent Edgewood to defeat with a sacrfice fly to center, scoring Fink.
As hard as Edgewood tried in the last two innings, Geneva wouldn’t be stopped.
“Jordan Harchalk (2-1) came and pitched a fine three innings to pick up the win in relief of Kevin Beduhn, who held them (Edgewood) in check,” first-year Geneva coach Justin Cafaro said.
Harchalk played down his importance in the game, but him stemming the tide was every bit important in the Eagle win as anything else.
“We fought back, getting timely hits,” Harchalk said. “This team has a lot of heart and we just tried to pick each other up and keep on fighting. It all worked out well for us.”
Cafaro feels his team has seen a lot of extra-inning games this year and it has helped them as the season has progressed.
“Our team never gives up, as you remember against Jefferson this year (two late victories by the Falcons), but we’ve faced this four or five times this year,” he said. “We just beat Conneaut earlier this week, but we lost to Harvey. So we have plenty of experience in extra-inning games.”
Fink collected four of the nine Geneva hits and was a thorn in the side of the Warriors all day.
“I was seeing the ball extremely well tonight,” Fink said.
He feels this was the most exciting game of his life.
“My heart is thumping and I think I’m going to die, but it was a lot of fun,” he said.
Fink thinks the familiarity of knowing Warriors pitcher Andrew Showalter from summer baseball helped him and his teammates get the win.
“We were talking between innings where he was throwing the ball, because his ball tails away, and we knew we’d have to go with the pitch to be successful against him,” he said. “Coach Cafaro says timely hitting is the key to winning games and we tried to stress that today.”
Edgewood coach Steve Kray has just about seen it all this week as his team split with Jefferson and had Geneva on the ropes on Thursday.
“We won the game twice and they won the game twice,” Kray said. “Their’s was the one that counted. We scored in the top of the seventh and they scored in their half. We scored in the top of the ninth and they scored two to win it.
“We gave it an effort. We just came up short.”

McClimans is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.

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