Four home runs usually get the job done. St. Anne’s-Belfield pasted the baseball on Tuesday and although they had one sloppy inning that allowed Liberty Christian Academy to make it interesting, the Saints still never trailed and at the end of the day looked and played like the top seeded team in the VISAA Division 1 playoffs. With the offense rolling, STAB was able to take down the visiting Bulldogs in the quarterfinals of the state tournament, 15-8.
“We have a couple of hitting coaches and the kids are very receptive to making adjustments,” said Saints coach Alan Swanson. “They do very well and we’re doing very well so it’s fun.”
It was all about the bats and once John Siciliano got it started in the bottom of the first with a leadoff single, just about everyone got in on the act. Following Siciliano was Sheldon Shifflett who had the first jack of the game, a hard hit 2-run shot to centerfield.
“First pitch fastball is what I was looking for and I got it,” Shifflett said. “You just try and make solid contact and good things happen there. I think we’ve been doing well and seeing the ball better and there’s not much more to say than that.”
In the very next at bat, Kevin White hit an almost identical solo blast to center to make it 3-0 for STAB.
LCA had five hits on the day, and Ryan Price’s 2-run home run with two outs, the team’s first hit of the game, was one the biggest and allowed the Bulldogs to try and keep pace with STAB in the top of the second.
RBI singles from Greg Wise and Siciliano followed by an RBI fielder’s choice from White put STAB up by four runs in the bottom of the second. Both teams were quiet in the third inning, but things warmed up quickly.
The Bulldogs tagged STAB for a run in the fourth when Josh Campo hit a double and took third and home on a pair of wild pitches. St. Anne’s responded with a 5-run inning on an RBI single from Siciliano, 3-run homer from Shifflett and a solo shot from Brian Yeagle to go up 11-3.
STAB faced its biggest inning of adversity in the top of the fifth as LCA turned a walk, fielder’s choice, wild pitch, another walk, a wild pitch, RBI strikeout, walk and 3-run triple into five runs all with two outs.
Not to be outdone though, the Saint’s three run lead was quickly inflated when Siciliano drove in Brett Johnson on a ground ball out. Then topped the game off in the bottom of the sixth on a 3-run homer from Josh Gibson deep into left field that nearly destroyed a car driving through the campus.
“I had a lot of built up anger after not doing so hot,” Gibson said. “I got my pitch and did what I could with it and it worked out. We go through practice with both lefty and righty pitching because we’re fortunate to have both as coaches. So we’re accustomed to both. And we don’t just work on fastballs, we get curves and everything so we’re constantly working on balance, staying back and exploding through the ball and it really helps us.”
David Spinosa picked up the win in five innings of work for STAB and struck out five batters to remain unbeaten on the year. Matt Morris was excellent in two innings of relief to pick up the save and fanned three batters in relief.
“We love doing that — when Spinosa’s (throwing) 91(miles per hour) and Matt comes in and locates three pitches and throws a great change up, it’s very tough,” Swanson said of going to his ace starter and then accomplished junk-baller. “Both of them did a good job. We broke down a little bit and gave (LCA) five outs, but other than that it was pretty clean.”
STAB advances to the final four for the second straight year where they still await their opponent due to weather. The Saints will play in their semifinal game in Colonial Heights on Friday at 11 a.m.
“The last couple of years we’ve been jittery,” Shifflett said. “We need to just go into this and play baseball like we know how to do. We’ve all seen it before so hopefully now we can do what we need to do.”
