New Albany’s Nolan Pettinger blasted a solo home run over the center field fence to hand West Side a 3-2 defeat in seven innings in the winner’s bracket final of the Ohio Little League state tournament.
West Side drops to the loser’s bracket and faced East Holmes in an elimination game on Thursday night in Englewood.
“I like how they’re hooting and hollering over there — because this ain’t over yet,” Nichting said. “We’re going to come back.”
New Albany ace Kevin Klingerman gave West Side hitters their first true test at the plate. The right-handed fireballer threw 86 pitches in 5.2 innings with 10 strikeouts.
Klingerman will be unavailable to pitch for the remainder of the state tournament since he exceeded 61 pitches, which forces him to have four calendar days of rest, according to the Little League rule book.
“I like that we’re pretty deep in pitching,” Nichting said. “So we’re going to see what happens. We have to get tougher — that’s basically it. We will battle.”
West Side starting pitcher Ethan Woods kept New Albany at bay through the first two innings.
He was the one who got West Side on the board first, too.
Woods led off the top of the second with a dribbler to Klingerman, who fired a throw to first base that was mishandled. Max Hall reached on a bunt single, and Cole Vowell was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Woods scored on a passed ball to give West Side a 1-0 lead.
Finn Chenoweth scored on another passed ball with two outs to up West Side’s advantage to 2-0 in the top of the third.
New Albany scratched one across the plate with two outs in the bottom of the third to cut the margin to 2-1. Hall came in to relieve Woods, who pitched 2.2 innings, struck out five and gave up four hits.
New Albany then tied it up in the bottom of the fourth.
“After that, we couldn’t catch a break,” said Nichting, making note of Cash Brown’s line drive to center that was snagged on a full-extension dive by New Albany’s Beau Spangler. “That was crazy. That might be an inside-the-park home run — or at least a triple.”
West Side went 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh, and Pettinger opened up the bottom half with his game-winning homer off West Side reliever Nolan Warner.
Timmy Saurber, Woods and Hall accounted for West Side’s three hits. Pettinger finished 3 for 3 for New Albany
About the Author