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McDONALD -- It showed early on, that lack of experience.
Just three players with varsity experience.
Those early-game jitters were evident with just three players with varsity experience, but once the McDonald Blue Devils settled in, they never looked back Tuesday as they rode Logan Presco's arm to an 8-5 win over Springfield.
"There were some nerves," McDonald coach Bill Ifft said. "We're a very young team. We know how good they are. They're a tough team to beat. Once we get through the nerves. We started hitting the ball. We played pretty well in the field after that.
"Zach Shobel's double broke things open. We had numerous guys with two hits, Nolan Agler, Wyatt Wolford, Avery Maley, and Joe Skowron. We hit the ball. We had timely hits. Logan came in. He's a freshman. He's a bulldog. He wasn't gonna give up. He came in and shut them down."
All of that came through in a six-run explosion in the third inning.
Before then, Andrew Cupan struggled a bit with his control. A couple of throwing errors along with three consecutive walks helped Springfield open a 2-0 lead after one inning.
The Blue Devils threatened in the bottom half of the inning but Shobel grounded out to pitcher Braden Butler to keep Culp and Cupan at second and third.
Butler struck out Agler to end the inning.
After a 1-2-3 second inning, McDonald cut the Springfield lead in half in the bottom of the second on Wolford's sacrifice fly to right field to score Skowron.
The Tigers added to their lead on back-to-back fly out RBIs from A.J. Stallsmith and Aaron Groner to make it 4-1 heading into the bottom half of the third.
To this point, Butler was mostly cruising, having given up just one hit with three strikeouts.
"We were telling them to be more aggressive," Ifft said. "We also did some hit and run. We started stealing a little bit more on them and it put some pressure on them. It worked out for us. We made plays when we had to."
After getting Avery Maley to fly out to right, Culp's single just got past third baseman Groner. From there Culp stole second and Cupan walked.
A throwing error on Culp's steal of third made it 4-2. Shobel's hit to left field was mishandled which resulted in Shobel making it to second and scoring Cupan.
"Our outfield hurt us quite a bit," Springfield coach Terry Dobson said. "There was no communication on defense. Our defense killed us today."
Back-to-back singles from Agler and Skowron tied it at 4 all.
Butler struck out Nick Ferradino for the second out of the inning.
Instead of the inning ending with Wolford facing two strikes, his single to centerfield scored Agler and Skowron to make it 6-4
With Carson Schrader up, Wolford stole second and scored on Schrader's single to left field to make it 7-4 after three.
"They played harder," Dobson said. "They wanted it more and they were better than us. We came with no energy. We didn't show up. They did and deserved to win."
Ifft went to Presco to start the fourth inning with Cupan's pitch count at 69.
It was a smart decision as Presco allowed just three base runners and two hits over the final four innings.
"Our offense didn't help at all," Dobson said. "I think on the 21 outs, we hit two ground ball outs. That was it. I think everything was either strikeouts or pop ups. We did not do anything, offensively, that we have worked on."
After the first two and half innings of play, the total flip of the game for McDonald was impressive as they looked to have their hands full down 4-1.
"I have to commend my baseball staff," Ifft said. "Anthony Ragazine is a tremendous pitching coach. Ray Lewis and Jeff Posey, these guys are really good baseball coaches. They always say to surround yourself with people that are good or maybe better than you.
"It was just a good feeling to beat these guys. Springfield is Springfield. It was just a great team win, just a great team win."