WABASH — Silver Creek’s 13-year-old All-Stars clinched the top seed in their state finals pool following Thursday’s wild 14-13 win over Fort Wayne Saint Joe.

Jacob Balz’s RBI single scored Brian Campbell in the top of the ninth inning for the game-winning run and Chris Cunningham held St. Joe scoreless for the final two innings.

Silver Creek faces Lowell today in what amounts to a meaningless game. It has clinched a top spot in one Saturday semifinal, which is schedule for 1 p.m.

“We can get our pitching rotation in order and be ready to go Saturday afternoon,” Silver Creek manager Jeff Hawn said.

After the Fort Wayne All-Stars tied the contest at 13-13 with three runs in the bottom of the seventh, both teams went scoreless in the eighth. Campbell drew a walk to leadoff the ninth. A single by Derek Hall and a fielder’s choice moved Campbell to third with two outs.

Balz, who was 3-for-6 wth two runs, ripped the RBI single to give Silver Creek a 14-13 lead.

“Jacob’s been hitting the ball really good all tournament season long,” Hawn said. “He was put in the situation and he came through for us again.”

Silver Creek trailed 5-1 after two innings and didn’t get the lead until a four-run sixth game it a 10-9 advantage.

With the game tied at 10-apiece, Campbell ripped a bases-loaded, two-out double down into the left-center gap to clear the bases and put Silver Creek up 13-10.

“It was a really, really big hit,” Hawn said. “He’s been one of our key hitters. [St. Joe] brought in their No. 1 pitcher. That’s what [Campbell] wanted, to face their best pitcher.”

After St. Joe scored three seventh-inning runs, rarely-used pitcher Chris Cunningham shut down St. Joe the rest of the way.

“It was pretty amazing what Chris did,” Hawn said. “He was about the only pitcher we had left. He came in cold and was able to pitch the last two innings without giving up a run and he ended up getting the win.”

Creek won despite seven errors in the field.

“It was a bad game in the fact that we had seven errors,” Hawn said. “It turned into a good game because our kids never gave up. The kids battled back for a big victory.”

Campbell finished 2-for-3 with three walks, four runs and two RBIs. Hall was 3-for-5 and knocked in five runs, and Chris Phillips went 3-for-5 with a run knocked home.



• D-V Seniors fall short in Region opener: District V softball All-Stars dropped an 11-4 decision to the Iowa state champions in their Central Region opener on Thursday at South Bend.

“It was a whole lot closer game than [11-4],” D-V manager Donnie Betz said. “We had some nice hits. We just lacked that one big hit to win the game. Tomorrow’s another day.”

District V resumes pool play today with a doubleheader against Michigan at noon and Missouri at 2 p.m.

D-V fell behind 3-0 after a half-inning but fought back to tie the game at 3-apiece after four innings. Iowa took the lead for good with a three-run fifth, then put District V away with five more in the seventh.

Ashley Swearingen had an RBI triple in the second inning and Kasey Betz hit an RBI double in the sixth.

Betz pitched four innings and struck out nine Iowa batters.



• HYR falls to 1-1: HYR’s Senior All-Stars managed two hits in a 4-3 loss to the District 2 champions at Thursday’s state finals at Portage.

Aaron “Buck” Sneed had a two-RBI single and Mike Springer had the other hit for HYR.

“That was the story of the game. We just didn’t have any bats,” HYR manager Andy Stout said.