4A Elkhart Sectional Semifinals: Concord, Warsaw move into final

By Steve Krah
PBR Indiana Correspondent

ELKHART — The baseball teams with the best records are not always the ones who get to play for championships.

That is the case at the Class 4A Elkhart Sectional where Concord (14-15) topped Elkhart Memorial 7-2 and Warsaw (11-15) beat Northridge 7-3 Saturday, May 31, in the tournament semifinals.

Memorial, the Northern Lakes Conference co-champion, saw its season end a 17-12-1. Northridge wound up at 16-12.

The Concord-Warsaw championship game is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, June 2.

Concord 7, Elkhart Memorial 2

Junior Brent Curry played a big hand in helping Concord to a shot at its first sectional championship since 2009 as he pitched a two-hitter and also drove in three runs.

Curry kept the Crimson Chargers guessing even while battling a back ailment.

"Curry just guts it out," said Concord coach Jim Treadway of the right-hander. "He's just a gamer. He's been playing like this for about a month. He had a no-hitter going against Plymouth in early May and we had to shut him down around the fifth."

"When he's on, he's high 80's and touching 90 with a nasty slider and he swings it pretty well."

Memorial coach Scott Rost said his team had a hard time putting together quality at-bats against Curry.

"(Curry) was effectively erratic," said Rost. "He was in the zone enough to get us swinging and — at the same time — he was erratic enough that we had trouble squaring it up consistently."

"He changed speeds well and he did what he needed to do."

After splitting two games with Northern Lakes Conference for Memorial during the 2014 regular season, Treadway wanted his Minutemen to strike early in the third meeting.

"I felt if we could push one across early it would give us some confidence," said Treadway, who saw Concord get one run in the second when Curry doubled and later scored on a Memorial defensive miscue.

The Minutemen plated three runs each in the fourth and fifth innings.

In the Concord fourth, Curry cracked a two-run single while senior Matt Williams rapped an RBI double.

Senior Brett Neveraski doubled in two runs and another run scored when Curry was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.

The Chargers, NLC co-champions with NorthWood, scored both its runs in the seventh inning without a hit. A sacrifice fly by sophomore Jon Bailey and groundout by senior Jake Tucker plated the runs.

"There were some other times where we just missed pitches where they turned into long flyballs instead of doubles," said Rost. "It was just one of those days that we didn't get the breaks that we needed."

Warsaw 7, Northidge 3

Tigers coach Mike Hepler has has team in position to earn the program's 12th sectional championship — the first since 2010 — with the help of a five-run third-inning uprising against Northridge.

Warsaw collected four of its seven hits during the big frame. The big blows being a two-run single by seniorBrandon Shipp and an RBI single by senior Justin Oberlin (one of three runs batted in on the day for the lead-off hitter). Another run scored via a Northridge error.

Solid glovework and pitching also kept getting Warsaw out of jams.

"It was key defensive efforts," said Hepler. "It's what we practiced and the kids executed. As a coach, I couldn't be happier."

There were plenty of offensive opportunities for Northridge, which did get single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings thanks to an RBI single by sophomore Andrew Kennedy, run-scoring single by junior Payton Carson and infield run-producing single by junior Cameron Ridenour. 

The Raiders left nine baserunners on base, including six at either second or third base. 

Northridge stranded two each in the second, third and fourth innings. 

Warsaw starter Kevin Hawley pitched effectively against the Raiders before the junior ran out of gas in the fifth.

"They burned us a lot of first-pitch fastballs earlier in the season," said Hepler. "We told Kevin, 'you can't just lay it in there on the first pitch and expect them to take it. They are going to be hacking away.' We wanted to challenge them, but challenge them with off-speed pitches."

So Hawley fed the Raiders a steady diet of slow breaking pitches. When they hit make good contact, it seem a Tiger was always there to catch it.

Having played Concord twice during the regular season (Warsaw won 8-1 and Concord won 5-3), Hepler knows the Minutemen's strengths.

"They are a very athletic team," said Hepler. "They are going to be aggressive."

But Hepler expects the Tigers' focus to be on the Tigers.

"It isn't to demean anybody, but it's about us and about our energy and our focus and where we are mentally," said Hepler. "(Against Memorial), we had it and our kids understand that's what's important."