Notre Dame rally seals victory over rival Central

With the wind howling Monday afternoon at Notre Dame Regional High School, the host Bulldogs didn't score a lot of points for artistic impression, but they did score just enough runs to slip past Central.

Responding to the Tigers' rally in the top of the inning, Notre Dame scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth and hung on for a 9-8 victory.

Notre Dame committed more errors and had fewer hits than the Tigers, but took advantage of eight walks, two hit batters, two errors and a pair of misplayed balls to improve to 3-0.

"It was an ugly game on both parts," Notre Dame coach Jeff Graviett said. "We came out on top, but we struggled catching ball, and they did too. In the end we made some big pitches and plays to win it."

Officially the teams were charged with six errors -- four by Notre Dame -- but both had other misplays as they struggled with the wind that blew out to left field.

"It was blowing for both teams," Central coach Steve Williams said. "There were some plays we should of made that we didn't, and that's the bottom line."

Notre Dame scored three runs on one hit in the first inning and had Central (2-3) playing catch up for the remainder of the game.

The Bulldogs took a 4-2 lead into the fourth inning where it looked like the Tigers might make a full recovery.

Chris Daniel opened the inning with a double against starter Scott Wittenborn, who then hit Mark Dunaway with a delivery. Both Tigers scored when Wittenborn slipped when fielding Jesse McGregor's sacrifice bunt and threw the ball down the right-field line. Two batters later Tiger leadoff batter Seth Hudson recorded the second of his three doubles to chase Wittenborn.

Graviett summoned right-fielder Wayne Essner to the mound, and the situation worsened. Essner walked Chris Conrad to load the bases, then uncorked a wild pitch to put Central ahead 5-4 before hitting Mitch Craft to reload the bases.

"He was real close to coming out," Graviett said.

But Essner recovered, getting clean-up hitter Aaron Dohogne to pop out before getting John Ford on a called third strike.

"You only have eight pitches, and it's hard to get a rhythm," said Essner, referring to warmup pitches allowed. "In-between innings I went and threw and got into kind of a rhythm."

Essner ended up allowing three hits in 3 2/3 innings and picked up the win.

"Once he got his arm lose, he threw the ball well and gave us three good innings," Graviett said.

Notre Dame rode the momentum to five runs in the bottom of the fourth for a 9-5 lead.

The first six Bulldogs reached base in the inning, including Dustin Tatum who smoked a line drive to center field off John Thies that Craft misjudged and saw go off the top of his glove for a two-run double and a 6-5 lead.

Timmy Wencewicz's RBI single chased Thies, and Kyle Duncan relieved and allowed two more runs to score on wild pitches.

Central scored three runs in the sixth, but saw the potential tying run thrown out at second to end the inning.

"They made crucial plays and we made some mistakes that cost us runs," Hudson said.

Notre Dame second baseman Shane Kistner had two of the Bulldogs' six hits. Daniel also had two hits for Central, which had nine overall.

jbreer@semissourian.com

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