Flyers fall to Southern in district title game, 4-1

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, July 3, 2007

RIO GRANDE — Too bad Greg Bryant doesn’t know anyone in the mafia. Maybe he could have hired a couple of “hit” men Saturday.

The St. Joseph baseball coach was looking for some hits as the Flyers managed only two in losing 4-1 to the Racine Southern Tornadoes in the Division IV district finals at the University of Rio Grande.

“We just didn’t hit. That’s the bottom line today,” Bryant said. “He’s the best pitcher we’ve seen all year. He just did a really good job hitting his spots and he had a good breaking ball.”

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Patrick Johnson fashioned the two-hitter for the Tornadoes. He struck out seven and did not walk a batter.

“We didn’t hit and you have to score some runs to win. We made a lot of contact, we just didn’t make good contact,” Bryant said.

St. Joseph pitcher Ryan Waginger deserved a better fate. He gave up nine hits — three of the infield variety — and two of the runs were unearned.

“Ryan threw the ball well enough to win, we just didn’t give him much support,” said Bryant.

“If you don’t score more than one run, you’re not going to win too many games.”

Bryan Harris got an infield hit and Jake Hunter and Johnson bunted for base hits. Wes Riffle walked to force in a run and a two-out dropped pop up allowed two more runs to score.

Southern got a run with one out in the fifth.

Ryan Chapman and Nick Buck singled to put runners on the corners with one out, and J.R. Hupp had a two-out RBI single to make it 4-0.

The Flyers got their only run in the sixth inning when Chad Harvey got a leadoff triple and scored when Michael Basedow grounded out.

Jerrod Laber singled in the fourth inning for the Flyers only other hit.

St. Joseph ends the season with an impressive 18-5 record.

“We had a really good season and we had a lot of great fan support all season. We didn’t give them a lot to cheer for today,” Bryant said.

Southern (21-5) plays Newark Catholic at 2 p.m. Thursday at Lancaster’s Legion Field in the regional semifinals.

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Ryan Waginger and Pat Gagai. Patrick Johnson and Ryan Chapman. W-Johnson (7-K, 0-BB). L-Waginger (2-K, 2-BB, 2-ER). 3B-St. Joseph: Chad Harvey. Hitting-St. Joseph: Chad Harvey 1-2, Jerrod Laber 1-2; Southern: Jake Hunter 1-4, Patrick Johnson 1-3, Ryan Chapman 2-3, Nick Buck 1-3, J.R. Hupp 1-2, Anthony Shamblin 2-2, Bryan Harris 1-3.