The toughest thing to deal with in high school sports, or any sport for that matter, is the fact that there can only be one champion in each sport, so obviously that means that a good majority of team's seasons will end in a loss and disappointment.
Unfortunately, that was the case on Memorial Day for the 2016 version of Millerball. Entering Class 4A Sectional 8 play on their home turf of The Dunk, the Noblesville Millers had won 13 consecutive baseball games and were considered to be one of the hotter teams in the state of Indiana.
They got the draw that they wanted in a) drawing the Carmel Greyhounds for a rematch to hopefully avenge their 11-1 loss back on April 23rd and b) drawing the bye-game, which would set them up to only have to win twice to be crowned sectional champions.
Crazy 5th inning dooms Millers, ends season in sectional semifinals
4A #10 Carmel 5, 4A #5 Noblesville 4 - at The Dunk (Monday, May 30, 2016)
Noblesville Millers 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 - 4 3 1
Carmel Greyhounds 0 0 0 1 4 0 x - 5 8 1
This was the matchup that was anticipated from the day the sectional was drawn. The Millers were aiming for revenge to try and avenge their home loss to the Greyhounds from five weeks prior, but it would be a tall order.
Cory Conway got started off the way that he wanted to, striking out leadoff hitter Pete Lamagna looking to get the Miller faithful cheering from the get-go. For the most part, the defense helped as much as possible, only stranding Rhett Wintner on first after he reached with an infield single with two outs.
Tommy Sommer got his chance to face the Noblesville lineup another time and it would be a lot tougher to fool the Miller hitters than it was back in April.
For the first four innings, it was a pitcher's duel between Conway and Sommer.
Carmel got on the scoreboard and broke the 0-0 tie with a towering solo home run by DH Sam Micheels to give the Greyhounds a 1-0 edge through four.
This gave Noblesville a little motivation and the bottom of the Millers' order got their bats going in the top of the 5th.
Ty Lindstrand flied out to right to lead off the inning, getting ahold of a 3-2 Sommer pitch, but it wasn't far enough, putting the first out on the board. Austin Shirley was hit by a pitch and moved to second on an Alex Cleverly single to left. Harris Camp started the Millers' scoring spree with an RBI single in the right center gap to score Shirley to tie the game 1-1.
Cleverly's courtesy runner Neil Brown and Camp would score on would score when Travis Gillian reached on an error by Jack Van Remortal at third for a 3-1 Miller lead. Michael Carmosino hit a long fly ball to center for a sacrifice fly, scoring Gillian, giving Noblesville a 4-1.
The Greyhounds struck back in a big way, unfortunately. Jarrod Moon slapped a base hit to right to lead off the last of the 5th. Two batters later, Parker Massman got on with an infield single for two on and one out. Wintner was walked by Conway in an eight pitch at-bat to load the bases. Micheels reached on an error by Conway, scoring Moon and Massman to cut the Miller lead to 4-3.
Wintner scored to tie the game 4-4 on a wild pitch from Conway that got away from Cleverly. Van Remortal hit a sacrifice fly to Shirley in right that would score Micheels for the go-ahead run for a 5-4 Carmel lead.
Conway would be relieved to start the 7th by fellow senior pitcher Clayton Marowski. Mouse gave up a pair of one-out singles, but also struck out two Greyhounds in his effort to keep Carmel from scoring more.
The Millers weren't able to muster up any more hits in the 6th and 7th innings as they would go down in order in their final two at-bats, coming up on the short end of a 5-4 decision to county rival Carmel.
The hardest thing about seeing a loss like this unfold was that a team like the Noblesville Millers worked so hard to put together the season that they have just comes to a screeching halt.
It's even harder seeing that Cory Conway, Connor Christman, Michael Carmosino, Austin Shirley, Ty Lindstrand, Clayton Marowski, Julian Simac, Neil Brown and Nolan Vallier will never don the Noblesville Millers' black and gold again on the baseball diamond.
Those nine graduating senior players, along with Manager Sarah Knight and Trainer Ashley Higgins have put a tremendous amount of time, skill, effort, character and heart into being Millers throughout their 4-year careers.
I would like to personally thank them for all that they have done by being the best players, student manager and student trainer that we could ask out of our student-athletes.
The biggest plus to this group is that they were a part of something very special in that magical 4A state tournament run 2 years ago, capping it off being crowned State Champions! They also won 2 Hoosier Crossroads Conference championships in the past three years 2014 and 2016.
Overall during their 4-year span on varsity, they compiled an 88-37 record (.704), a 49-21 HCC record (.705), 43-18 (.705) at home, 33-15 (.688) on the road and 12-4 (.750) at neutral sites, including 7-1 during the 2014 state championship season (4-0 during their state tournament run).
Congratulations Millerball seniors of the Class of 2016! I wish you the best in your future endeavors!
The Voice of Miller Baseball,
Craig Adkins
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