By By TOM NYHUIS / Niles Daily Star
BUCHANAN – At the start of the season first year Buchanan baseball coach Joe Racht knew there would be some ups and downs through out the season.
Earlier in the season the team struggled with fielding errors followed by losing one of their starting pitchers to an injury.
Saturday at the Buck Classic the host team put all that behind them and came away with the championship trophy with a 8-7 win over Bronson. Buchanan advanced to the title tilt with a 6-3 win over Bloomingdale in the first game of the day. Bronson defeated River Valley to punch their ticket to the championship game.
In the opener Tyler Knisley pitched a great game according to the Buchanan coach.
"He seems to have great control of his pitches the last few games. In fact in his last two games pitched, he has thrown 14 innings, with 20 strike outs, giving up only four hits. If he continues to throw with this type of control he will be very tough to beat throughout the rest of the season."
The Bucks put up the first two runs in the opener scoring twice in the first inning and added another two in the third for a 4-0 lead. Bloomingdale scratched a single run across in the fifth inning.
The Bucks dropped two more runs in the sixth with Bloomingdale tagging on another two runs in the bottom half of the sixth to trail 6-3 heading into the seventh where Knisley held Bloomingdale scoreless for the complete game win giving up just three hits in the game and striking out 12. Knisley walked seven in the seven innings pitched.
Leading Buchanan at the dish in game one was Knisley, Bryan Kuntz and Cody Stanley each picking up singles. Mitchel Plott and Perry Whalstrom each had doubles in the game.
In the title game, Bronson jumped out to a 5-0 lead after two innings but the resilient Bucks bounced back with three in the third, one in the fourth and took the lead 7-5, pushing three runs across in the sixth. Bronson knotted the game up in the bottom of the sixth scoring twice off of Wahlstrom who took over for Evan Cauffman in the fifth.
In the top of the seventh Chris Woofter picked up the winning RBI while Whalstrom closed out the game for the Bucks on the mound.
"Evan gave a great showing on the mound for us giving us five strong innings. That put us in a position to win the game," Racht said. "This was a big win for the Buchanan program. We all feel like the kids have been making great progress and are starting to come together and play as a team. It's nice to see all of the hard work pay off for the team in a couple of nice wins."
Buchanan rapped out 10 hits in the clash with Bronson with Plott leading the way with a triple, double and two RBIs. Cauffman also added a big three run triple while Stanley and Woofter both added three singles each. Buchanan committed just two errors in the two games both of those coming in game two.