All the Marcellus baseball team did on Saturday was put an end to Westhill’s two-year state title reign with a 3-0 triumph in the Section III Class B-1 semifinals.
For that, they can mostly thank Mustang senior Tim Schneider, who spun a neat four-hit shutout. Mike Sniffen drove in two runs, and Jordan Smith pulled off a rare steal of home.
The shutout didn’t change Marcellus head coach Peter Birmingham’s opinion of the two-time defending champion Warriors.
“They (Westhill) are a juggernaut,” he said. “They deserve it. They’re a classy outfit. “But Birmingham added that his players weren’t intimidated by Westhill’s past laurels.
“They’ve beaten us the last couple years, but we’ve always played them tough,” he said. They’ve never blown us out. So we thought we had a chance. These are tough kids. They’re not afraid of anybody.”
Marcellus didn’t do much the first three innings to back up Birmingham’s statement, as Westhill starter Alex Godzak retired the first nine batters he faced.
Schneider wasn’t as flawless, but he was close. He pitched out of his only real jam of the day in the third, getting a flyout to leave two Warriors in scoring position.
Just after escaping that trouble, Marcellus moved ahead 1-0 in the top of the fourth. Sniffen’s run-scoring grounder followed Nick Sinay’s one-out triple. Then the Mustangs doubled their lead in the fifth thanks to some derring-do.
Smith doubled and moved to third on a groundout. He was still there two walks later. Godzak, a lefthander, took a full windup and couldn’t see Smith get a huge break toward home. The pitch was high and wide, allowing Smith to slide across the plate just ahead of Nathan Nigolian’s tag.
“Coach said ‘if you think you can do it, do it,'” Smith said. “We practice that regularly.”
Sniffen’s second RBI and Marcellus’ third run came in the sixth as Sinay singled, stole second and scored on Sniffen’s single.
Westhill nibbled at Schneider in the fifth and sixth, getting singles in each frame. But that’s all they got, and the senior righthander was in for some praise by both head coaches.
“(He was) awesome,” Birmingham said. “Another game with no walks. He’s not our number one but he’s 6-0. He’s beaten some good teams this year.”
“He did just what a coach wants his pitcher to do,” Westhill head coach Bob Weismore said, “(which was) throw the ball over the plate, have the other team hit the ball and hopefully your team plays good defense.”
Weismore suggested his team did a fine job of responding to the pressure that surrounds a squad having won two successive state titles.
“That stigma is there and you have to respond,” Weismore said. “We lost 28 players the last two years off two state championship teams. We only had three or four returners and people forget about that.”
Birmingham and Marcellus want to walk a mile in Weismore’s shoes next season. To get a crack at a state title means winning the B-1 crown Monday at DeLutis Field in Rome agianst no. 2 seed Watertown IHC, who blanked South Jefferson 8-0 in the other semifinal.
Birmingham has never won a sectional crown in his coaching tenture. And he’s not even sure the last time the Mustangs did. “Way before me.” he said. “We played in the championship but we didn’t win it.”
