Page 25 - 2009-10 Baseball State Finals Program

Last Year’s State Finals in Review

FORT WAYNE SNIDER RALLIES PAST WESTFIELD FOR 4A STATE TITLE

Alexander Mitchell’s sacrifice fly to right field scored Crouse singled down the right field line scoring McCafferty.
Spencer Anderson capping an amazing comeback by Fort The Shamrocks stranded 12 runners on base.
Wayne Snider in a 3-2 eight inning win in the Class 4A state For Snider and 17th year coach Andy Owen, it was
championship game at Victory Field. their fourth straight win by two or less runs. Westfield and
It was the second
baseball state champion-
ship in four seasons
for unranked Snider
(25-3) whose 2006 state
championship also came
in eight innings.
Westfield, with a 2-0
lead, seemingly had the
game in hand and was
on the cusp of its first
baseball state champion-
ship when things began
to unravel.
Mitchell led off the
seventh inning with a
single and then scored
on Cody Johnson’s
double that bounced to
the wall to make it 2-1.
Nicholas Vachon then en-
tered as a pinch runner
for Johnson. After a strike
out and a sacrifice fly to center that moved Vachon to third, seventh year coach Ryan Bunnell ended 24-6.
Thomas Zumbaugh, with two strikes against him, reached Drake Everson of Fort Wayne Snider High School was
out and made enough contact with the ball to find the gap recognized by members of the IHSAA Executive Committee
between the first and second basemen scoring Vachon to as this year’s recipient of the L.V. Phillips Mental Attitude
knot the game at 2-2. Lukas Richardson went down swing- Award in Class 4A baseball.
ing to end the inning.
After Westfield left a
runner on base in the top
of the eighth, Anderson
doubled to right center to
lead off the Snider eighth
and then moved to third
on a wild pitch. Westfield
opted to load the bases
with no outs by intention-
ally walking the next two
batters, but Mitchell’s
sacrifice fly scored the
game-winner.
Unranked Westfield
tallied 11 hits but could
only generate the two runs
in the second inning. An-
drew McCafferty tripled to
center scoring Taylor Luna
from second and then Nick
IHSAA - Pure Spirit. Pure Sport! 25

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