Lake Center Christian baseball's 'special group' wins district, returns to OHSAA regionals

STRUTHERS — Cruising to a second straight Division IV district title, the Lake Center Christian baseball team nursed a seven-run lead going into the sixth inning.

Then things became real interesting. Freshman Grant Coblentz replaced Nathan Bryant on the mound. Dalton responded by scoring six runs before Bryant returned to record the final two outs of the inning.

The Tigers (26-1) seized back momentum by scoring five times in the bottom of the sixth on their way to Thursday’s 12-7 victory at Bob Cene Park.

“You can’t let one half of an inning where a lot of goofy things happened make you think we didn’t control that game almost entirely and play really, really good baseball in all aspects of the game,” Lake Center coach Shane Byler said. “Because we did.”

Bryant said it it’s the second time in his varsity career he has returned to the mound after taking a break.

“You just have to reset your mind,” Bryant said. “It’s hard but I prayed about it.”

He also agitated.

Byler said Bryant was lifted after throwing 90 pitches.

“We felt like it was the right move,” Byler said. “Nate was breathing down my neck in the dugout saying, ‘Coach, I’m good, let me go back out there.’

"I just thought, ‘Man, for a kid to want the ball that much, to go out and shut it down when a lot of craziness was happening, that’s pretty impressive’ but it didn’t surprise me at all because that’s how he approaches his work.”

Before Bryant returned, the top of the sixth gobbled at least 30 minutes, including a 15-minute discussion with the umpires after a bases-loaded ground out that erased the baserunner going to third.

Dalton coach Scott Huth said the discussion centered on when time had been called and if baserunners had been tagged before.

Bryant re-entered and threw two warmup tosses.

“I felt perfect,” he said. “I knew what I had to do. The (strike) zone was tight but I figured it out late in the game.”

Bryant retired two of the Bulldogs’ next three hitters to escape. Bulldogs senior Will Carmichael smacked a two-out, two-run single to make it 7-6.

Last year, the Tigers won the district title with a 1-0 victory over McDonald.

“It was a 1-0 ballgame about as boring as they come,” Byler said. “Today, it was baseball.”

At the plate, Bryant contributed three hits including a RBI double. Coblentz hit a two-run single in the second. Harrison Coblentz tripled ahead of Bryant’s double.

“We put the ball in play — unfortunately it [often] went right to them,” Huth said. “And they made good plays.

“Their balls found holes — seeing-eye singles,” Huth said. “Or way over our heads. Theirs found a way to get down and ours didn’t, unfortunately.”

The Bulldogs (14-11) are graduating nine seniors including Seth Wyckoff who set four pitching records, including career wins, strikeouts in a season and career strikeouts.

“Seth Wyckoff has one of the most storied careers in Dalton history,” Huth said.

“We were in the regional last year and we had high expectations,” Huth said. “We’re gonna miss all nine of them, they were big contributors.”

This will be Lake Center’s third regional trip in school history. The Tigers lost last year’s regional seminal 4-2 to Tiffin Calvert.

Lake Center will player Hillsdale at Louisville at 5 p.m. Thursday.

“It’s big, we’ve been anticipating this all year,” Bryant said. “This is a special group of guys. We’re blessed with all these seniors.”

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Lake Center Christian School baseball wins OHSAA district title