Historic baseball sweep for TC Central

BY MARK URBAN
murban@record-eagle.com

May 08, 2008 04:00 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- It was a Murchie Memorial Trophy milestone night at Traverse City Central on Tuesday.

Jason Winowiecki got the historic baseball doubleheader started with a no-hitter and the Trojans posted a pair of mercy victories, 10-0 and 16-4, to become the first team to keep the trophy for three consecutive seasons.

"It feels great," said Zac Zoellner, the winning pitcher in the nightcap. "This is only my first full year on varsity, so it's great just to win it once."

The award goes to the team that wins the baseball doubleheader between Central and West. Splits are broken by total runs scored and the current holder of the trophy keeps it in the event of a tie.

No tiebreaker was needed this time as Central (18-4, 5-1 Big North) became the first team to win both games by 10 or more runs. There is only one other 10-run difference the eight years of the contests.

Despite the two convincing wins, first-year Trojans' coach Mike Gle said he didn't feel comfortable in either one.

"West isn't a bad team," Gle said. "They have a great program over there and West wants to win this game as much as we do. Besides, it doesn't matter what the records are or even what sport it is.

"It means a lot to these kids to win this doubleheader. There's the conference, yes. But you can't deny that when you play West, it means a lot to both schools."

Winowiekci said pitching against West in front of a bigger crowd puts the pressure on a little more. Not that it seemed to phase him.

Winowiecki kept the Titans off balance all game, striking out eight in his no-hitter.

"It felt pretty good," Winowiecki said. "The fastball and slider were working mainly and the change-up was on and off."

"He was unbelievable," Zoellner said. "He hit his marks all the time. He was untouchable."

Winowiecki also got plenty of early support.

The Trojans got a run in the first and added four in the second on Zoellner's three-run homer and Casey Lundy's RBI single. Kevin Krantz added a sacrifice fly before Central closed out the game an inning early on a two-run single by Lundy and a RBI single by Zoellner in the sixth.

"They have a good ball club; they're as good as I've seen at Central," West coach Randy Weber said. "Their shortstop (Krantz) covers a mile out there and he hits a ton. Their kid throws a no-hitter and then the next kid comes in and shuts us down.

"Plus the top of their order scored runs every time they came up."

The top of the batting order gave Central a 1-0 lead in the first inning of the nightcap as well as Lundy led off with a single, went to third on an error and scored on a Zoellner RBI groundout.

West (6-11, 3-5) came right back with two runs in the bottom of the first and two more in the second to take a 4-1 lead. The Titans first two runs came on an error following a leadoff double by Grant Durga, a walk to Jordan Rife and a sacrifice bunt by Tim Drake.

Weston Edmondson had an RBI single and Durga a run-scoring fielder's choice in the second.

But the Trojans erased that lead with five runs in each of the third, fourth and fifth frames.

Four West errors contributed to the third-inning outburst, which also featured RBI singles by Zoellner and Jared VanWormer.

Central scored its runs in the fourth on Derek Diekman's three-run homer and a pair of wild pitches. In the fifth, Lundy had a run-scoring single, Krantz a RBI double and VanWormer a two-run single.

Gle said the way the Trojans started game one helped them recover from the early deficit in game two.

"Great pitching, great hitting," he said. "When you have great pitching and the guys come up hitting, it's pretty simple. That's the basics of the game.

"I thought our kids were focused and ready to play the game ... and they were."

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