Firestone baseball, North tennis win City Series championships; Ellet honors retired coach
The Firestone baseball team won the City Series postseason championship for the second year in a row Tuesday night at Canal Park.
Firestone defeated Ellet 7-3 in the final after Ellet won the regular-season games 7-6 and 4-3.
"We seemed very nervous and tight with multiple baserunning errors, but tied it up twice in the third and fourth innings before having a five-run fifth," Firestone coach Jeff Sloan said. "Senior CJ Heller doubled to drive in one and junior Skyler Nespo doubled in two, plus there were two unearned runs.
"Junior Luke Rhamy got the win pitching six innings with three earned runs, and junior Haneef Abdul-Mujib got the save pitching a scoreless seventh. Freshman Nate Plas short-hopped the right field wall for a double and hit one into the right field corner for a triple. Sophomore Jose Uzcategui played outstanding defense."
Plas, Nespo and junior Malcolm Bufford had two hits apiece for Firestone (10-8). Heller and Nespo each had two RBIs and scored a run. Plas and Bufford both scored a run.
"We knew what we had to do against Ellet," Nespo said. "We have been hitting in practice. When we went into this game, we knew we could beat them. The two games before, we didn't play well. We knew what we had to do in the championship. I was in the right mindset and a good mood going into the game. I knew I had to be calm and just try to put the ball in play."
Freshman Keaton McKeel and junior Noah Williams each hit a single and a double to pace Ellet (10-11). McKeel scored two runs and Williams added a run.
"I’m very proud of these kids to not give in to the mental mistakes," Sloan said. "I asked them to put the mistakes behind and battle with each at-bat."
Said Plas: "At the start of the season, Ellet got the best of us by one in both games. It was just a matter of doing the little things right, and that is what we did on Tuesday. We were doing everything well. We were moving runners over and making plays in the field. It was an overall great day for us."
North wins City Series boys tennis championship
North swept all five courts in the City Series tennis championship on April 29 at Towpath Tennis Center.
North's victory under coach Peyton Young ended Firestone's 51-year run as the City Series boys tennis champion. The Falcons had won a league title in boys tennis every year since 1972, with one exception being 2020 when there was no season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
North's Sanjil Magar, Roman Magar and Vaskar Subba won the singles titles. Kshitiz Lepcha and Sujal Subba won the first doubles championship and Tao Non and Amit Limbu were victorious in second doubles.
All five North victories in the final round were in straight sets.
Firestone's Dylan Debo, Henry Gruhler and Mason Kehner placed second in the singles brackets. The Falcons were also second on the doubles courts with Jakob Domke and Andres Varner-Waltz and Alexander Jarosz and Salvatore Pietranti.
Ellet set to honor retired baseball coach John Sarver
Ellet's baseball field will be named "John Sarver Field" during a ceremony at 12:45 p.m. Saturday before a 1 p.m. game against Springfield.
Sarver, 70, retired as Ellet coach after last season with an overall record of 627-392 in 43 seasons. He spent his final 24 seasons leading Ellet to a 379-247 record.
Sarver was Kenmore's coach for one season in 1980. He then guided Archbishop Hoban for five seasons from 1981-1985, spent two seasons at Buchtel in 1986 and 1987 and returned to Hoban for 11 seasons from 1988-1998.
Sarver's Ellet teams won 18 City Series regular-season championships, 15 league postseason titles and two Division I sectional titles. His Hoban teams won four district championships, one regional title and finished as Division II state runner-up in 1993.
Sarver taught 35 years in Akron Public Schools, retiring after the 2014-2015 school year. He was an assistant football coach at Ellet for 43 seasons, from 1979-2016 under former coach Joe Yost and from 2017-2021 under former coach Chuck Shuman. Ellet went 253-178-2 during that time, made four OHSAA playoff appearances (1991, 2012, 2013 and 2020), and won two outright City Series football championships and shared six other league titles.
Sarver, a 1973 Ellet graduate, earned three letters apiece in football and baseball, and was an All-City Series and All-Metro League selection in both sports. He is a member of the Greater Akron Baseball Hall of Fame (1994), Summit County Sports Hall of Fame (2014) and Northeast Ohio Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame (2016).
Michael Beaven can be reached by email at mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com and is on Twitter at @MBeavenABJ.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Firestone baseball, North tennis win City Series championships
