The road to a second Division I state title in baseball for Strongsville High came up short with a 9-2 loss to Perrysburg in the regional final Saturday afternoon at Stellar Field on the campus of Bowling Green State University.
A big part of the tournament run ending for Strongsville came with the thunder of a 3-run home run by Matt Garbig to cap a 4-run second for Perrysburg, which advances to the Division I state semifinal at 10 a.m. June 2 at Huntington Park in downtown Columbus with the win.
Garbig gave the Yellow Jackets a 5-0 lead with the 2-out blast against Mustang starter Austin Prichard, who did not survive the fourth inning, giving up seven runs, six earned on seven hits with three walks and four strike outs.
Prior to Garbig's home run, the Yellow Jackets, ranked No. 5 in the state, scored once in the first and again earlier in the second. The second inning run prior to Garbig's 3-run homer came on an RBI single by A.J. Stockwell.
Perrysburg (24-3) which defeated Toledo St. John's Jesuit, 1-0 in 12 innings a day earlier on a suicide squeeze bunt with the bases loaded on the same Bowling Green field to advance to the regional final, opened the scoring against Strongsville in the bottom of the first with the help of an infield error.
With one out and a runner at second, Matt Kruzel reached on an error by third baseman Anthony Morino that scored Alec Schmenk, who led off with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice.
After the 4-run second for Perrysburg, the lead ballooned to 7-0 in the fourth with some two-out magic. After Pritchard had retired the first two Yellow Jacket hitters, Garbig drew the first of his two walks.
A day earlier, Strongsville head coach Josh Sorge warned of that same possibility coming back to haunt his team.
"When you give up two out walks, you can really get hurt," said Sorge after his team defeated Midpark 5-0 a day earlier at Kent State University. His words came back to hurt a day later with Strongsville one step closer to a second state title in five years.
Kruzel kept the inning alive with a single to left to move Garbig to second. With Tony Bojanowski running for Garbig, Zach Kolvey singled to left, scoring Bojanowski and moving Kruzel to second.
That ended Pritchard's day with Strongsville trailiing 6-0.
Sam Clarke took the mnound for Strongsville and gave up an RBI single to Steve Slocum for a 7-0 Perryburg advantage.
Slocum was on the other end a day earlier, scoring the winning run against on the 12th inning bases loaded one out sucide squeeze against Toledo St. John's.
Strongsville (20-2), whose only other loss was to Akron Hoban after starting the season 11-0, rallied in the fifth when Forrest Perron, who went 3-for-4 with two RBI, drilled a 2-out, 2-run homer to cut the Perrysburg lead to 7-2.
But the Mustangs, who had at least one base hits in in every inning except the fourth, never were able to put anything solid together against Kruzel, who went 6.1 innings, allowing two runs on eight hits with three walks and five strike outs.
Perrysburg, which will face either Willoughby South of Uniontown Green in a state semifinal, got those two runs back in the sixth with a 2-out, 2-run single from Ryan Young after Clarke began the inning by walking Garbig and later giving up a 1-out single to Kolvey.
Perron's third hit, a double with one out in the seventh along with a 2-out walk to Anthony Mauer gave the Mustangs their final hope. But Williams retired Colin Houdek on a ground out back to the mound to send Perryburg to the state semifinals next Thursday and send the Mustangs back home with their second loss of the season and a split of tournament games played on Mid-American Conference baseball fields.
Besides the 3-hit day for Perron, the Mustangs who won the Division I state title in 2006, had two hits each from Brennan Singleton, who scored on Perron's home run and Nate Langhals. Mauer, who was hitless in two at-bats, drew two of the four walks issued to Mustang hitters.
In Perryburg's 11 hits, two each went to Schmenk, who scored twice, Kolvey and Hunter Smith, who each scored once.