Ironwood tops Hancock in Division 4 districts
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IRONWOOD -- The Ironwood baseball team had a lot of ups and downs this year. The bats have been pretty quiet in general.
A road trip to Hancock in mid-May didn't bode well for the district tournament as they were swept by their first-round opponent.
But it all came together when it needed to as the Red Devils defeated Hancock 6-3 Tuesday to advance to the MHSAA Division 4 District 97 semifinals.
Jeffers beat L'Anse 17-4, and Lake Linden-Hubbell beat Wakefield-Marenisco 10-6 in the other district first-round games.
Ironwood will host Ontonagon at 10 a.m. Jeffers will play Lake Linden-Hubbell in Ironwood after that game with the district championship game to follow.
Sean Korpela pitched a gem and Rukus Betlewski closed it out effectively. The offense came alive and built a 4-0 lead that left Hancock on its heels.
"That was probably our best start-to-finish baseball game we played all year," Ironwood coach Adam Mackey said.
The Red Devils won the district championship last season after entering the tournament with an under-.500 record. This year, their record was on the better side of even - they're now 15-10 - but they still had more questions than answers heading into the districts, especially with a tough first opponent.
"We played in some big games last year, being able to win a district championship, play in a regional semifinal," Mackey said. "The attitude of this being a big game helped us. I think sometimes we sleepwalk if we realize it's a lesser opponent or about the same caliber. I think we really brought it today, the guys kept the energy up."
Korpela struck out six and allowed just two walks in five innings. He didn't allow a hit, and even better, he stayed under 75 pitches so he's fully available to pitch on Friday.
"He did a good job of throwing strikes, had a little speed and kept our hitters off balance, we didn't have many hard-hit balls," Hancock coach Travis Pietila said. And when they did, they were right at people, he said.
Ironwood needed Betlewski to be good as well, to slam the door on Hancock and keep Korpela available for Friday. He had three strikeouts and gave up the three runs.
"We had good pitching," Mackey said.
The fielding was good, too, for when Hancock did make good contact.
"Guys made great plays in the field," Mackey said. "Cody Dabb made a couple, one on a soft liner, and then a harder liner. Those are big plays."
And they got the offense they've been looking for.
Ironwood took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Gavin Delich. They scored another run in the second on a single by Elijah Sprague.
The Devils made it 4-0 with two big runs in the third.
Cody Dabb hit a sacrifice fly to score Evan Oja. Gavin Delich scored on a bad throw home that went to the back stop. He was safe in a play at the plate, which seemed to get the team fired up as they met the fired-up Delich going back to the dugout.
"Cody dabb scored on a sac-fly, they threw the ball home, got a little wild and Gavin Delich, with his speed and his instinct, he was running hard from second to third and he was going so hard, I thought it was gonna give us our best chance to score," Mackey said. "He made sure to dive head first to avoid that tag."
The Devils added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth. One of the runs came when pinch-hitter Aiden Ozzello scored on a fake steal attempt of second by Elijah Spraque. They were big insurance runs as Hancock got on the board with one in the sixth and then two in the seventh.
Ironwood finished with eight hits.
"We still had our strikeouts, but at the same time, we were still able to hit the ball more than we have in the last few weeks," Mackey said. "That's a big thing, especially in high school baseball. Because other teams, not necessarily are they bad defensively, but they're probably not going to make every single play. That's the most important part, trying to put pressure on the other team."
Ironwood now hopes to play two games Friday - first against Ontonagon and a championship game matchup against either Jeffers or LL-H.