ELYRIA — SDC Painting followed its manager’s blueprint for success Wednesday in an 8-7 win over Rowland Enterprises in the Little League Seniors (ages 15-16) City Championship at George Day Field.
“Good defense, good pitching and timely hitting win a lot of ballgames,” said SDC Painting manager Jon Phillips, whose team represented Little League East. “I’ve told my team that all season and they’ve really lived up to that philosophy of mine.”
After falling behind 2-0 and then bouncing back for a 5-2 lead, the champions had to come back once again in the bottom of the sixth inning after falling behind 7-6.
Duke Long led off SDC Painting’s sixth with his second single and promptly stole second. A sacrifice moved Long to third, and he trotted home on a passed ball. Bubba Shope, who walked, scored the game-winning run on an error and a wild pitch.
“We scratched out the hits when we needed them,” Phillips said. “We also had some timely baserunning.”
Rowland Enterprises, representing Little League North, needed no hits, just two walks and two errors to grab its 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning.
Not to be outdone, the champions sent 11 batters to the plate in the bottom of the inning and came away with their 5-2 lead.
Long, Cody Reaser and C.J. Shope each had a double during the rally, which was aided by three Rowland errors. The damage could have been worse as SDC Painting left three runners on when a foul out ended the rally.
Two Rowland Enterprises errors in the third inning allowed SDC Painting to up its lead to 6-2.
SDC Painting starting pitcher Bubba Shope kept Rowland Enterprises hitless through four innings before manager Todd Brubaker’s team scored five runs in the fifth inning to take a 7-6 lead.
Josh Brubaker and Kyle Robinson had infield singles to start the rally. An error, Kyle Brown’s single, a fielder’s choice, a sacrifice, a walk and a hit batter got the runs home. The rally was over when a second runner attempted to score on the sacrifice.
“It really was important that we jumped on them early,” Phillips said. “Once our pitchers started throwing strikes, we were fine. We also have a good batting order. We kept our errors down. Our catcher (Matt White) made some great stops to keep them from scoring more runs.”
“The better team won this game,” Todd Brubaker said. “They’re well-coached. Their pitchers kept us off balance. We weren’t in this game mentally right from the start. SDC Painting had a nice tournament run and deserved to win.
“I was happy to see that we didn’t quit. We also have had a fantastic season. Our boys have worked hard to get to this championship game.”

Firefighters win slugfest for third

Ben Baptiste had four singles, scored two runs and had two RBIs to lead the Elyria Firefighters to a 12-9 win over Western-Southern Life in the tournament’s third-place game.
Justin Murray threw six innings of relief to get the win for the Firefighters, who represented Little League North. Murray also had a triple, a double and scored two runs.
Western-Southern Life represented Little League East in the tournament.

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