Baseball: Payton Dye provides the band aid to stop Hall’s bleeding

SPRING VALLEY - Payton Dye was just what the Hall Red Devils needed Thursday.

The junior right-hander stymied rival Princeton with a three-hit, 10-1 victory at Kirby Park. Dye fanned 10 batters and walked three to pitch the Red Devils to the Three Rivers East victory and snap a three-game skid.

“We’ve been in a funk, seriously. Just playing bad baseball defensively. Leaving guys on base. Needed to stop the bleeding for sure and Payton was our band aid today,” Hall coach Tom Keegan said.

After allowing two base runners in the first (two walks) and second (hit and error) innings, Dye settled down, striking out all six batters he faced in the fourth and fifth innings and the last man he faced in the sixth.

“We’ve been in a funk, seriously ... Needed to stop the bleeding for sure and Payton was our band aid today.”

—  Hall coach Tom Keegan

“I was ready to go. Been ready since Tuesday. Just wanted to get out there, and it just felt good to go out there and get it done,” Dye said.

Princeton’s Ryan Brucker matched Dye early, spinning three scoreless innings.

Third baseman Joel Koch got the Red Devils’ bats going with a two-run blast down the left-field line that landed on the roof of a parked car just outside of the fence. No word on damage to the car, but Koch’s blast provided plenty of damage for the Red Devils.

“Oh, that was huge. He got it started for us, and that really got me going, gave me more energy to go out there,” Dye said.

The Red Devils opened the floodgates in the fifth inning with five more runs on three hits.

No. 9 hitter Max Bryant doubled to center with one out. Princeton elected to intentionally walk Hall slugger Mac Resetich, but catcher Kyler Lapp made them pay with a two-run single to right with the speedy Resetich scoring all the way from first.

Koch lined a pitch off Tigers reliever Landon Koning’ foot, but Koning recovered the ball for the putout at first, with Lapp scoring to make it 5-0.

Hunter Meagher followed with a two-run hit to give Hall a 7-0 lead.

Princeton broke through with its only run of the day off Dye with a leadoff single by Jordan Reinhardt and an RBI double by catcher Ace Christiansen.

Hall saved more fireworks for its last at-bat, scoring three runs on four hits in the bottom of the sixth with Resetich in the middle of things.

Freshman Braden Curran led off with a pinch-hit double and scored when Resetich’s fly to right field was lost in the sun. Resetich never stopped running and scored easily for an inside-the-park homer when the Tigers failed to retrieve the ball and throw it into the infield.

Keegan just sat back and watched the show.

“He’s his own coach on the base paths,” Keegan said. “You talk about about being a good base runner and knowing where the ball was. That was him. He knew where it was. Even if I gave him the hold sign, he was probably running through it anyway.

“You stop being a coach, and more so a fan, and stop and watch him go. He was making three left turns and digging for home.”

Lapp doubled and Ashton Pecher traded places with him with a RBI double to make it 10-1.

“It was nice to have our bats finally come alive. Had really good defense behind us. The energy was there. It was a good day,” Dye said.

The Red Devils had eight hits, six for extra bases, led by Lapp, who went 2 for 3.

“Joel got us going with a two-out bomb, which was absolutely huge at the time,” Keegan said. “There were contributions up and down the lineup. Maybe even more so for our younger kids in the dugout, just watching Mac run the bases. He adds some excitement.”

Princeton coach Wick Warren, whose Tigers beat the Red Devils 4-1 on Monday, said it was tough having the game get away from them so quickly.

“At one point, it was a nothing-nothing ball game in the third inning. We had two outs and Ryan hung a ball, and a kid hit a good shot,” he said. “Still at that point, it’s 2-0, anybody’s ballgame. We just flat out left too many opportunities out there today. We had 10 strikeouts.

“We got to get the ball in play and get chances. We had second and third with no outs (second inning) and didn’t score.”

Warren said the Tigers also failed to make some key plays in the field.

Hall evened its TRAC East record at 2-2, improving to 5-3 overall. Princeton fell to 3-2, 1-1.

“They’re a good team. I knew they were going to be hungry. I bet it’s been seven or eight years since they’ve lost three in a row, maybe even longer,” Coach Keegan’s going to get them going, and he did.”