Baseball: Tuman tosses gem for Joliet Catholic to topple Seneca

COAL CITY – The first pitch that Joliet Catholic’s Michael Tuman threw Wednesday afternoon was promptly lined right back at him by Seneca’s Calvin Maierhofer.

Tuman admitted Maierhofer’s infield single stunned him for a second, but it did nothing to shake his resolve regarding the task at hand. Tuman scattered five hits on his way to a 3-0, complete-game victory over Seneca in the semifinal round of the Class 2A Coal City Regional.

Joliet Catholic (19-8-1) will face the winner of Thursday’s semifinal game between Wilmington and Reed-Custer at 11 a.m. Saturday in Coal City for the regional championship.

“When you go out there and throw a scoreless first inning, it kind of gives you a little more confidence,” Tuman said. “If I threw strikes, I trusted my defense and trusted my stuff to get some strikeouts too.”

Those factors were worthy of Tuman’s trust because he allowed next to nothing to Seneca offensively. Two of the five Seneca hits were of the infield variety, and only one Fighting Irish baserunner managed to reach third base against him. Zack Sulzberger was stranded there after Tuman induced back-to-back groundouts after Sulzberger reached with a one-out infield hit.

“As a junior, he got his feet wet,” Joliet Catholic coach Jared Voss said. “So we had high expectations for him coming into his senior year, and he’s pretty much delivered for us the entire season. He’s just kind of been a model of consistency for us.”

Tuman needed that sharpness, especially early, when it appeared Seneca sophomore Paxton Giertz was prepared to try to match him pitch for pitch.

Giertz struck out three batters over the first two innings, but a bit of a problem was quickly cropping up as Joliet Catholic did a nice job of stretching out at-bats and adding to Giertz’s pitch count even if the at-bat didn’t end with a hit.

The Hilltoppers finally broke through in the third with back-to-back two-out hits. Jake Troyner, who went 2 for 2 with a walk, rapped a double, and Zach Beitler chased him home with an RBI single.

It appeared Joliet Catholic might allow Giertz off the hook in a laborious fourth inning, but a two-out, two-run single from Trey Swiderski widened the gap to 3-0. The Hilltoppers left the bases loaded and lost a chance to blow the game wide open, but with Tuman still on cruise control, it was a luxury Joliet Catholic would not need.

Tuman strung together a run of eight consecutive retired batters from the third to sixth inning. After Sulzberger reached via his infield hit, Tuman locked in again and retired the final five Seneca batters, finishing the game with his eighth strikeout.

“At the start of the year I was supposed to be out of the bullpen, but I pitched well and earned the spot,” Tuman said. “I was a little nervous the night before, but I came in did what I had to do.”

Seneca finished its season at 18-9 and drew rave reviews from its head coach regarding the account it made for itself against the defending Class 2A state champions.

“Like I just told the guys after the game, you just went toe to toe with the best Class 2A team in the state, and there’s a chance they could go win at all again. And we can look back and say that we could have one of the closest games in the postseason against them,” Seneca coach Tim Brungard said. “That’s a team that you have to be perfect to beat, and we were really close to that. Today with a couple timely hits, maybe, but I credit them. They are a very well coached team. Their guy had all of his pitches over for strikes and kept us off balance.”