Hosting the sectional on your home field, you get that much more comfort in your surroundings. Having probably the best high school baseball field in the state of Indiana, there's no reason in the world that Noblesville shouldn't host baseball sectionals each and every year.
Noblesville just won the Hoosier Crossroads Conference championship outright, which is touted as the state's toughest conference. 4A Sectional 8 is the toughest sectional in the state. Battle-tested, if the Millers can get out of this sectional, there might be no stopping them.
They got the luck of the draw and drew the bye game and wound up playing #13 Fishers in the first semifinal on Monday, who defeated #9 Carmel in the sectional opener, 7-3. The only odd thing for the Millers is that they would be the visiting team on the scoreboard, which I'm sure they could care less about that.
Sectional 8, Semifinal: 4A #8 Noblesville 6, 4A #13 Fishers 1
Millers 0 0 0 1 4 0 1 - 6 7 0
Tigers 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 1 6 1
Fishers was on a mission to upset the home standing Millers. In the bottom of the first, the Tigers loaded the bases with one out. A liner to McLean in center was caught on a diving catch by the junior. But, that was just the second out and it became a sacrifice fly and Fishers took a 1-0 lead.
It was a chess match on the mound between Noblesville's Garrett Christman and Fishers' Nathaniel Rhodes during the 2nd and 3rd innings. In Fishers' half of the 3rd, GC allowed two singles, but struck out a pair, stranding those runners on the bags to hold the Tigers in check.
Taking charge on the mound, Garrett led things off in the 4th by reaching 1st base via an error by the Fishers first baseman. After Vinny Essig popped out to short, the game's momentum was about to shift fully.
Zack St. Pierre drilled a hard liner off the glove of the Tigers' left fielder, giving him an RBI-single and sending GC home to tie the game 1-1.
After Connor Christman and Bret Rundle were quick outs to start the 5th, Andrew Wilson, Brian McLean and Garrett Christman were all three walked consecutively to load the bases.
Vinny Essig laid into a single, scoring Wilson and McLean for a 3-1 Noblesville lead with two runners still aboard.
St. Pierre was back at it again. Zack's left-handed bat stroked a two-run single, plating Garrett Christman and Essig for a 5-1 Miller advantage.
Putting an exclamation point on things offensively, Noblesville figured they would put an insurance run on the board before Fishers had one last at-bat in the bottom of the 7th.
Andrew Wilson doubled to lead the inning off and McLean put down a beautiful bunt single, getting Wilson over to third to have runners at the corners with no outs. Garrett Christman hit a sacrifice fly to help Wilson jog home for a 6-1 count, which wound up as the final score.
It's pretty clutch when your 3-4-5 hitters in the lineup play a huge role in your offense. Garrett Christman, Vinny Essig and Zack St. Pierre combined for 3-10 together and produced all 6 Miller RBIs.
GC was pretty much the definition of comfortable on the mound and I don't think head coach Justin Keever and pitching coach Greg Vogt could have been more pleased with the senior right-hander.
Christman (7-1) tossed a complete game, giving up just 6 hits through his 7 innings, one run (earned), walking just one Tiger and fanning 6.
Fishers bowed out of the sectional and the 2014 season with a much improved 21-10 final record.
With the semifinal win, Noblesville (23-8) set themselves up for a Sectional 8 championship matchup with HCC rival Hamilton Southeastern (13-16), who upset another HCC foe Westfield 4-3 in the second semifinal of the day.
The sectional championship was postponed from Monday night because of torrential down pouring rain that hit central Indiana. It was now slated for Tuesday, June 3 at 7:30.
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