PREP BASEBALL: NorthWood shuts down Norwell 3-0 to advance to semistate championship

LAPORTE — An eight-pitch sequence in the bottom of the fourth inning meant postseason life and a possible death for the NorthWood Panthers in their Saturday semistate semifinal game against Norwell at Schreiber Field.

NorthWood junior starting pitcher Finley Miller welcomed his infielders and his head coach to the mound when a bunted ball loaded the bases with one out for the Knights. With the Panthers clinging to a 1-0 lead, head coach Zach Benko didn’t remember what he told his group, but he clearly explained a way out for his ball club.

After a first-pitch strike to Norwell’s Trey Privett, the starting catcher fell for a well-executed NorthWood trap.

“We had film, and we had seen them do some squeezing in bases loaded-situations in previous games,” Benko said. “We knew it’d be a possibility and the I saw something that tipped me off that it was probably going to happen here and so we put the call on — a verbal call — and the boys executed perfectly.”

Privett was thrown a high fastball and he bunted the ball up. As the ball skied toward the home dugout, NorthWood catcher Ryder Ransberger discarded his mask and made the thrilling catch at the fence to pick up the second out of the inning. Miller, who has been given the nickname “Phil” by his peers, would get behind a 3-1 count to Norwell’s Carter Castello, but he’d secure his sixth strikeout of the game to leave ’em loaded.

“We talked about that all day coming into the game,” Ransberger said about his catch in the fourth inning of a NorthWood 3-0 win over the Knights. “If they’re going to try and squeeze, we’re going to go fastball-up and try to get him to pop it up. We worked on that every day and so it wasn’t too difficult. I was just glad that Phil executed and we got that out.”

NorthWood (19-12-1) will now play for the Class 3A semistate championship against No. 1 Andrean (29-3) in LaPorte at 7 p.m. CT. Andrean defeated DeKalb 2-0 in the second semifinal game.

The Panthers beat Norwell 3-1 in the semistate semifinal last season in LaPorte before a 4-0 championship loss to Andrean. The Fighting 59ers went on to win the Class 3A state title and have already guaranteed themselves a spot in Class 4A next season.

Norwell out-hit NorthWood 4-3 on Saturday, but the Knights were never able to bring home a run against Miller. The Wawasee transfer threw all seven innings, allowing four hits and one walk while striking out seven batters.

“He was changing speeds, stayed within himself and did a nice job finding spots,” Benko said. “He understood where the zone was the entire game.”

NorthWood took a 1-0 lead in the first inning after Ean Bogan took a leadoff walk. Bogan advanced two bases on a pair of passed balls. Eventually, sophomore Brody Rondeau drove the run in with a two-out single through the left side of the infield.

“That has been a shift, but it didn’t start today,” Benko said about Bogan, who finished the game 0 of 1 at the plate with three walks. “For him, he’s been much better in the state tournament and he’s been seeing a lot of pitches for our entire team and he’s really setting the table nicely so pitchers are having to throw him everything to get him out.”

Norwell’s Dylan Chism would allow the first earned run of the game, but he’d shut the NorthWood offense down for much of the game. The Panthers didn’t record a third hit until the sixth inning.

Up 1-0 and having gained momentum in the bottom of the fourth, NorthWood added some insurance runs in the sixth. A leadoff walk to Miller opened the frame before Ransberger turned on a 2-2 count. He sliced a ball down the left field line for a double, which scored Miller from third. Jett Rulli would hit a ball to shortstop, but an error by the Knights scored Ransberger for commanding 3-0 lead.

“We were really having good at-bats the entire game and we were seeing a lot of pitches,” Benko said.

“I was trying to just hit the ball hard,” Ransberger said. “He had struck me out on a fastball earlier and so I was just making sure that it wasn’t going to get by me again. He threw me a curveball and I just hit it well.”

In the bottom of the seventh, Miller would give up a single to the first batter. He’d recover by getting a lineout to centerfield, a swinging strikeout and an infield popup for the final out.

Class 3A Northern Semistate Semifinal – At Schreiber Field in LaPorte

NorthWood – 1; 0; 0; 0; 0; 3; 0 – 3; 3; 0

Norwell – 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0 – 0; 4; 1

Championship: NorthWood (19-12-1) vs. Andrean (29-3) – 7 p.m. CT