Tri-C Baseball Wins OCCAC Championship

The Tri-C Baseball team won the OCCAC Championship tournament on Thursday afternoon at sunny Sports Force Park in Sandusky.  The Tops came in as the #1 seed and faced off against #4 seed Clark State in the semi final game while arch rival Bryant and Stratton faced off against Owens.

In the semi-final game, Jackson Judy (University of Dayton committ) proved why he is the ace of the staff with a 7 inning, 5 hit shutout of the Eagles.  Judy struck out 10 and did not walk anyone.  The offense was juiced in the third inning as Connor Bozak socked a two run homerun and in the sixth Garrett Grinstead had a 2 run double to give the Tops all the runs they needed for the 4-0 shutout.

In the finals, the Tops faced off agains the Bobcats of Bryant and Stratton who had to go extra innings to defeat Owens.  The Tops and Bobcats had split a 4 game series last week so the teams were very familiar with each other. The Bobcats jumped out to a 5-1 lead after two and a half innings but the Tops scored 6 in the bottom of the third and never looked back adding three more in the 4th and 5th and two more in the 6th.  Skylar Kries got the win for the Tops and Gavin Mangus shut the Bobcats down for the last two innings. On offense it was the NJCAA Division II leading hitter, Kyle Koehler, leading the way going two for four with 6 RBI's.  Mason Koons, Braden Reed also has multi-hit games.

The Tops now stand at 31-15 on the season and will be the #2 regional seed out of the OCCAC based on in division record.  This means they will travel into Michigan for the first round of regionals for a three game series, however, there are still many scenarios to be played out to determine their opponent.