Tipp advances to second round, defeat Franklin 8-4

Tipp was in control of their sectional tournament opener last week against Franklin until a crazy fifth inning. Even after the Wildcats closed their deficit to one run with a bizarre inning, Tipp responded well with three runs in their half of the inning, and defeated Franklin 8-4.

“To get our legs underneath us tonight was big especially with such a young team,” Tipp coach Cameron Dickens said. “We don’t have deep tournament experience, and there is going to be a punch thrown by the other team at some point, but we need to learn how to withstand that, and we never wavered tonight.”

While Peyton Schultz was taking care of things on the mound for Tipp, their offense went to work immediately in their first at-bat.

Preston Zumwalt singled to open the first for Tipp and a walk to Brady Liskey set the Red Devils up with a threat. After a walk loaded the bases, with two outs Jaxon Hill was hit by a pitch to give Tipp their first run then Schultz helped himself with a two-run double to give Tipp a 3-0 lead after the opening inning of play.

An inning later, Tipp struck again. Zumwalt singles stole second and scored on two wild pitches. Lisky then singled and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Carson Jackson pushed the Tipp lead to 5-0.

“We have been talking about it for weeks; we know we have to create offense, and we did that tonight,” Dickens said. “We got some timely hits and put it all together.”

With the comfortable lead, Schultz allowed a run in the third but got out of additional trouble with a big strikeout and fly ball to center with Tipp holding to a 5-1 lead.

Then came the interesting fifth inning.

Franklin scored three times on only one hit, with the damage happening on a pickoff attempt at first, and after the dust had settled, two runs scored to make it 4-3. But not to be outdone, the Red Devils came back with a three-spot in the bottom of the inning with two of them scoring on a routine fly to left field that would have ended the inning, but the ball was dropped allowing two runs to score.

“That was a crazy play against us in the top of the fifth, but I have been playing against their coach for a while, so I knew they liked to create some offense,” Dickens said. “I have never seen a play where they scored two runs on an attempted back pick, but our kids didn’t melt down, and we answered back.”

Tipp now hosted Oakwood last night with a report next week in the Gazette.