Little League Baseball: Hatzer & Son rallies in final inning for Streator city championship

STREATOR – After finishing the regular season as the No. 2 seed and surviving a play-in game, Hatzer & Son found itself down two runs and on the verge of being shut out in the final inning of Wednesday’s Streator Little League city championship for the Major (11-12) Division title.

Nothing to worry about.

Hatzer & Son rallied for three runs in the top of the sixth inning, then saw pitcher Zae Moton, in relief of starter Braydon Vickers, strand the potential winning run on first base for a 3-2, city-title victory over top-seeded Streator Collision.

“We just had to stay in it,” said Vickers, who scored the winning run and was the winning pitcher. “When you’re quiet and you keep your head down, you don’t do good. So I was trying to keep the positive energy so we could eventually lift the team up.”

Though the team hadn’t scored through the first five innings against Streator Collision starter Ben Mascote (5 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 2 BB, 11 K), Hatzer & Son’s sixth-inning rally didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Like its higher-seeded opponent, Hatzer & Son threatened routinely all ballgame, including leaving the bases loaded in the fifth when Mascote worked out of it with a strikeout looking.

Although that fifth inning didn’t result in any runs and left the eventual city champions still trailing 2-0, it did flip the batting order. That proved to be very important.

With both starters’ pitch limits reached, Hatzer & Son leadoff man Zerek Sibert greeted Streator Collision reliever Noah Rodriguez with a line-drive single. A walk issued to Isaiah Dalton, an error on a Vickers ground ball and heads-up baserunning by Dalton to advance to the unoccupied third-base bag and Vickers to follow him to second amongst the chaos made it a one-run game and put the go-ahead run in scoring position.

Dalton scored the tying run on a dropped-third strike, and Vickers came home to make it 3-2 on an RBI fielder’s choice groundout off the bat of Noah Kolojay.

“I’ve been telling them all season: When you have errors or the game’s tough, just continue playing 10 times harder,” Hatzer & Son coach Mike Dalton said. “We’re all here to have fun, it’s a sport that they all love, so just continue playing it.”

Rodriguez (1 IP, 1 ER, 1 H, 2 BB, 2 K) avoided any further damage, but the one-run cushion proved to be enough for Moton (1 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K). The right-hander with a start-and-stop, submarine delivery earned the save for Vickers (5 IP, 1 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 12 K) by striking out the side in the sixth despite taking a hard line-drive shot off the torso on a two-out Rodriguez single.

“At first I didn’t feel that,” Moton said of the line-drive that drew gasps from the crowd and both dugouts. “Then it started hurting, but now it doesn’t hurt any more.”

Sibert delivered two hits and Kolojay one for the Hatzer & Son offense, with standout defensive plays recorded by Dalton at second base, Patrick Luckey at shortstop and Sibert behind the plate.

Brady Daugherity used his leadoff man speed to go 3-for-3 with three legitimate infield hits for Streator Collision, with Rodriguez delivering two hits – including a fourth-inning double to center that plated both of his team’s runs. Marshall Volkman also had a hit and standout play at third base for the city’s regular-season champions and tournament runners-up.

“You’ve got to give it to them,” Streator Collision coach Nick Daugherity said of Hatzer & Son. “Braydon Vickers pitched a heck of a game, really took care of the meat of our lineup, then a couple errors here and there that gave them their opportunities, and they took advantage of it. But that’s baseball. ...

“We have nothing to hang our heads about. It was a great season, and every single one of them improved. I’m happy with how it went.”