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Penn Wins First Semistate since 2001

June 14, 2015



By Steve Krah
The Elkhart Truth
PBR Indiana Correspondent



PLYMOUTH — Penn High School baseball had not been to the IHSAA State Finals in baseball since 2001.

So a storm delay in the Class 4A Plymouth Semistate was more than tolerable.

The Kingsmen beat Homestead 12-3 for a berth against Terre Haute North (21-11) in the 4A state championship game Friday or Saturday, June 19 or 20, at Victory Field in Indianapolis. The IHSAA will decide Sunday, June 14, the date and time.

Penn will be taking aim at its fourth straight baseball crown with banners already hanging on Bittersweet Road for 1994, 1998 and 2001.

“This is what we work for every year,” Kingsmen coach Greg Dikos said. “The kids don’t realize how close they are. It just takes a little bit of luck and it definitely takes some talent.”

Penn (25-9) led Homestead 6-0 in the fourth inning when lighting and heavy rain caused play to be suspended for nearly three hours and the Kingsmen went on to prevail Saturday, June 13, at Plymouth’s Bill Nixon Field.

There were two outs at the time of the delay. Homestead came back with three runs off junior right-hander Skylar Szynski (9-1) on two singles (Matt Anderson and Luke Wilcox) and a hit batsman (Ben Schwartz) to load the bases against Szynski. The rally ended without a forecourt at third base.

Homestead produced baserunners in all seven innings. But the Spartans stranded 14, including eight in scoring position.

Penn put an end to a Homestead rally in the second inning with a double play (senior second baseman Brooks Ullery to junior shortstop Luke Schneider to sophomore first baseman Nolan Metcalf).

“(Delays) often can often help the team that’s not playing well as well as the team that’s winning,” Homestead coach Steve Sotir said. “We were just hoping it would be a total re-start for us. We were prepared to play as long as we had to play. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for us today.”

Penn blew it back open with six runs in the sixth. Knocking in runs were Ullery (two-run single), Schneider (single), Metcalf (single), junior Brandon Stesiak (sacrifice) and sophomore Trevor Waite (sacrifice).

Penn’s four-run uprising in the third featured four hits and a Spartan error. Driving in the runs were Waite (double), Stesiak (single), senior Tim Lira (single) and sophomore Nik Kavadas (Homestead error). Schneider opened the inning with a double and tallied the first run. Stesiak, Kavadas and Waite also crossed the plate for the Kingsmen.

The Kingsmen scored two runs with two outs in the second inning. Waite belted a 1-2 pitch off Homestead starter D.J. Moore (4-4) over the fence in right-center field for solo home run and Szynski cracked an RBI double.

“I just sat back to took a pretty good cut at it and it went over the fence,” Waite said of his homer — the first given up in 2005 by right-hander Moore. “We just tried to stay relaxed and stay poised (during the delay).”

For the second straight Saturday, Szynski had to endure a break in between pitching stints. At the LaPorte Regional, he tossed a two-hitter in the first game against Hammond Morton then came back hours later to record the final five outs in the regional final against Chesterton.

“I had to come back and try to get in the groove,” Szynski, the Indiana University commit, said.

Szynski was sailing along against Homestead before the break then had to gut it out through six before right-hander Riley Stratford came on to finish the seventh.

Homestead was trying to win a semistate title for the second time. The Spartans’ other semistate championship came in 2008.

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