Leading AlWood/Cambridge just 3-1 in the third inning of the May 21 Class 1A regional, the ROWVA High School baseball team put practice into action to spark a seven-run inning and beat the Aces 11-3 to advance to Saturday’s championship against Orion.

With two runners on base, Grant Saline ripped a single off the first base bag to load the bases and Ben Scott followed with a slicing triple into the right field corner that cleared the bases.
The Tigers claim they weren’t late getting around on A/C hurler Clayton Carr’s pitches, they meant to do that.

“We were able to hit the ball to right field this time. We weren’t able to do it the previous two games,” said ROWVA starting pitcher Casey Schuermann. “So we were waiting back on the ball and driving it.”

The teams had split a doubleheader early in the season - A/C won 11-5, ROWVA won 11-2.

“We knew that Clayton comes in a throws a lot of slow stuff,” said ROWVA coach John Clark, whose team improved to 21-7. “We just hung in there and hit a lot of balls to right field.”

Schuermann survived a shaky first inning in which he allowed an unearned run to turn in a solid performance and earn the win. He didn’t allow a hit for three straight innings and breezed until A/C’s Caleb Seibert stroked a two-run homer in the fifth inning. By then, ROWVA led 11-1.

“At the beginning I wasn’t hitting my spots and as the game went on I started hitting them,” said Schuermann, who noted of the homer, “I didn’t hit my spot. It was supposed to be a fastball low and inside and I left it up and he hit the ball.”

Along with Scott’s big triple in the third, Trevor McCarthy added a two-run double to the uprising. Saline went 2-for-3 for the Tigers with three runs scored - one of them from second base on a wild pitch in the fourth.