H.S. BASEBALL: Catskill, Chatham to play for Patroon title

The Cats will play Chatham for the league championship on Friday at 4:30 p.m. at Columbia-Greene Community College. Maple Hill will host Greenville in the third place game on Friday at 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday’s semifinal featured a matchup between two of the top pitchers in the league in Maple Hill’s Gavin Van Kempen and Catskill’s Adam Carlson and both turned in stellar performances.

Van Kempen, who had pitched three consecutive no-hitters coming into the game, finished with 19 strikeouts and just one walk, while allowing three runs and four hits.

Not to be outdone, Carlson threw five innings of shutout ball, before Maple Hill got to him for a run in the top of the sixth. The Wildcats got a runner to third with two outs in the seventh, but Carlson reached back for something extra and ended the threat with a strikeout. The senior right-hander allowed just two hits in seven innings with 11 strikeouts and six walks.

Eddie Rogers came on to pitch the eighth, allowing one run and two hits with two strikeouts.

“I’m really excited,” Catskill coach Eric Joyce said. “I think everyone counted us out when they knew Van Kempen was pitching against us and no slight against him, he’s one of the best pitchers this league has ever seen. We had an approach today, we had a plan and we stuck with it. It didn’t look so good in the middle innings, but we stuck with it and we came through in the end. I’m really proud of the guys.”

Joyce was especially proud of Carlson’s gutsy effort on the mound.

“Adam Carlson really has a lot of pitching talent, but what he leads our team in by far is heart. He has so much heart, he has so much guts. He really pitched well today and deserves all the accolades.”

Maple Hill loaded the bases with one out in the first inning, but Carlson worked his way out of the jam by striking out Gavin Van Kempen and Jack Wildermuth to end the inning.

Catskill got the first hit allowed by Van Kempen in four games in the bottom of the first when Rogers smoked a triple over the center fielder’s head. He eventually scored on a wild pitch to put the Cats in front, 1-0.

The Cats maintained the one-run edge until the sixth when Jerry Stalker was hit by a pitch and came around to score on Gavin Van Kempen’s double.

Both teams threatened in the seventh, but neither could score, sending the game to extra innings.

Sam Gamello greeted Rogers with a double to open the Maple Hill eighth and Stalker followed with a double of his own to score Gamello with the go-ahead run. Rogers went on to strike out the next two batters, then retired Kaden Van Kempen on a pop-up to second baseman Dan Smith.

Van Kempen came back out to pitch the bottom of the eighth and Catskill went right to work. Azar Brantley reached on an infield throwing error, then advanced to second base on defensive indifference.

“I wanted to limit them to that one run in that inning, get out of that and I knew we needed to get the lead-off batter on and Azar came through,” Joyce said. “He hustled down the line, he made them make a play, we were able to get the lead-off man on and then good things happen.”

With one out, Nate Shook-Timot drilled a 1-2 pitch to right field that he legged out for a triple, scoring Brantley with the tying run. Rogers flied out to shallow center for the second out, setting the stage for Smith, who ripped an 0-1 pitch for a base hit to right, scoring Shook-Timot with the winning run.

“Danny has been swinging a hot bat lately. He just missed a couple earlier in the day and he ran into one in that last inning and I’m proud of him.”

In addition to his clutch hit, Smith played well in the field, handling every chance flawlessly while playing second base.

“We’re lucky that we have two shortstop on our team, one plays second and the other (Aiden Leipman) actually plays short,” Joyce said. “Danny is a good defensive player and he came up big for us today. Our defense has played well this year and hopefully we can keep it going.”

Chatham 9,

Greenville 3

CHATHAM — Top-seeded Chatham overcame a one-run deficit with seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning and went on to defeat No. 4 Greenville, 9-3, in the Patroon Conference Baseball Tournament semifinals on Wednesday.

Chatham will play Catskill for the league championship on Friday at 4:30 p.m. at Columbia-Greene Community College. Greenville goes to Maple Hill on Friday at 4:30 p.m. in the third place game.

The game was scoreless until Greenville plated two runs in the top of the fourth inning off of Chatham’s Matt Thorsen. Chatham got one back in the bottom of the fourth, then both teams scored single runs in the fifth to make it a 3-2 game.

The Panthers (18-1) finally got their bats going in the sixth, pounding out eight hits, including home runs by Thorsen and Tyler Kneller, to take the lead for good.

Thorsen finished with two home runs and three RBI for Chatham. Kneller had a home run and single with two RBI, Mike Pierro added a home run and single with an RBI, Matt Radley ripped a double and single with an RBI, Cam Horton had a double and single, Tate Van Alstyne an Noah Hutchinson both singled and drove in a run and Kyle Jackson and Vinnie Marasco singled.

Sam Buquet doubled and drove in two runs for Greenville (8-6). Trey Smith contributed two singles and an RBI and Isaiah Edmonds and Joe Domermuth singled.

Thorsen turned in a complete game performance on the mound for Chatham, striking out 14, walking two and allowing three runs and five hits.

Cole Flannery (8k,4bb,5r,9h) and Buquet (2k,4r,5h) shared mound duties for Greenville.