Schalick senior’s walk-off single caps two-run seventh-inning rally that lifts Cougars over Woodstown in Elmer Classic
MONDAY BASEBALL
Gateway 9, Salem 7
Salem Tech 12, Bridgeton 1
Schalick 4, Woodstown 3
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
ELMER — The home team missed an opportunity to break the game open with bases loaded in the second inning and couldn’t make it happen. They weren’t going to miss it again in the seventh with the game on the line.
Schalick loaded the bases after tying the game earlier in the inning, then with two outs Cooper Willoughby dropped a fly ball between two outfielders, sending home the winning run and giving the Cougars a 4-3 walk-off win over Woodstown in a classic Elmer Classic game.
“I’ve never had a team leave the bases loaded as much as this team,” Cougars coach Sean O’Brien said. “TThe good thing is we’re getting the bases loaded quite often, but not consistently coming up and situationally doing what we need to do. I think that will come.
“The pitching and defense has started to kind of turn the corner and been pretty solid for us, but offensively, that’s something we can get better at. We kind of go up and down. I think we’ll figure that out. At least we’re getting the bases loaded, but I’m glad we didn’t leave them loaded at the end.”
The Cougars trailed 3-2 going into their last bats, but had the heart of their order coming up against Walker Battavio, the Wolverines’ fifth pitcher of the game and one of their best.
Hot-hitting Ricky Watt drew a leadoff walk and Mason Hollywood shot a single through the hole at short to put a runner in scoring position. Bo Schalick then laced an opposite-field single into right field to score Watt with the tying run. Evan Glaspey followed with a single to load the bases with none out.
Battavio got the next two hitters on a foul pop to first and a strikeout. With the idea “coach would be too mad” if they let another bases-loaded situation slip away, Willoughby lofted the first pitch he saw into right field for what appeared to be the final out. Sol Elmer, the usual right fielder who moved when Battavio came in to pitch, raced over from center and Colton Williams, inserted to fill the vacancy in the outfield, moved over from right and the ball fell between them for the game-winning hit.
Williams had his glove up, but appeared to pull it back as Elmer moved into his space.
“This is probably the biggest game of my life I’ve played on the baseball field,” Willoughby said. “It’s probably the most high-pressure at-bat I’ve ever taken in my entire life, but I trusted my gut and was ready to go up there.
“I was a little more calm than I thought I would be. I remember thinking in my head like I don’t know if I’m ready for this, but just coming up to the plate I just knew it. I knew I was ready. I texted my coach last night and said I’m ready, ready to go, just go up there hacking.”
Willoughby went 3-for-4 in the game, the fourth three-hit game of his career.
“I think he had one of the best approaches all day,” O’Brien said. “He was very consistent at the plate. Other guys were kind of up and down, but I felt like Cooper had good approaches all day. I was actually happy to have him in that moment where he could have the opportunity to win the game.”
Up to that point almost all the runs in the game came on home runs. Certainly, all of Woodstown’s were.
Woodstown took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on Drew Sutton’s two-run homer. Schalick got a run back in the bottom of the first on Jamari Whitley’s double and an error in the infield, then tied it on Cole Hartley’s leadoff homer in the second. The Wolverines (7-5) retook a 3-2 lead on Luke Fraley’s one-out homer in the third. Both homers were the first of their varsity careers.
The Cougars (9-3) missed a chance for more runs in the second when they loaded the bases with one out after Hartley’s homer, but the Woodstown got out of it with an infield force at the plate and a line out to third.
“We don’t get out of that too often,” Woodstown coach Marc DeCastro said. “Something always finds a way of happening.”
Whitley started on the mound for Schalick and struck out 10 through six innings. After the Fraley homer and Ty Coblentz double that followed, he retired the next nine Wolverines in a row. Hollywood came on in the seventh and got the Wolverines in order with two strikeouts.
The win comes on the heels of a 3-2 walkoff loss to Vineland that was played just hours after the upperclassmen on the Cougars’ roster returned home from the Senior Trip to Orlando.
“We just haven’t hit the ball very well the past two games,” O’Brien said. “Our approach to the plate hasn’t been good, so it was good to find a way at the end where we started to turn it around. Maybe it’ll get us going in the direction to swing the bats better.”
| Woodstown | 201 | 000 | 0- | 3 | 6 | 4 |
| Schalick | 110 | 000 | 2- | 4 | 9 | 0 |
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