Charleston – Wyoming East head coach Kevin Hedinger perfectly summed up Wyoming East’s day with one statement.
“I’ve coached a long time and we ain’t never won a game where we haven’t scored any (runs).”
Hedinger’s words remained true.
Wheeling Central’ Brayden Cover mowed through Wyoming East’s lineup, allowing just one hit and fanning 14 in six innings of work as the Maroon Knights run-ruled the Warriors 10-0 in six innings in the Class AA semifinals Thursday at GoMart park in Charleston.
The win sends Central to the Class AA title game where it’ll face the winner of Philip Barbour-Logan on Satu8rday.
East’s lone hit came in the sixth inning off the bat of Miken Smyth, the only inning in which Cover faced any real danger.
“He threw fastballs by us all night,” Hedinger said. “We just took a lot of them. I don’t know what we were looking for. I mean he was just throwing it don the middle and we didn’t much contact on him.”
To East’s credit it held its own in the pitcher’s duel with southpaw ace Jaeden Lester throwing three shutout innings. He made it 4.2 innings before hitting a 100 pitches and getting the hook.
“We did some research on the Lester kid so we knew he was a pretty tough out,” Central head coach Todd Cover said. “A lefty with that kind of velocity and that kind of movement – a good curveball like that, it’s going to be tough. We might not have scored much against him but the one thing we did is run his pitch count up. Once we did that and got into the bullpen a little bit, that’s when it got out of hand.”
Lester worked out of jams throughout the first couple innings, stranding a one-out triple in the first and nearly escaping there fourth inning unscathed but a two-out miscue in the field allowed Central’s first two runs to score. A grounder to third base was fielded and throw to second but a late cover allowed Central to slide in safely on a fielder’s choice, plating a pair of runs.
Meanwhile East couldn’t capitalize on leadoff walks in the second and fourth innings with Cover fanning the following three batters in order each time.
“Brayden pitched really well for us,” Coach Cover said. “His stats may not wow you because he’s pitched against all the best team we’ve faced and that’s what you want out of your ace. He was on today and when he’s on, as his dad and his coach, just get out of the way.”
When Central finally chased Lester through floodgates opened with line drive after line drive. Cover’s RBI groundout in bottom of the fifth came after Lester was pulled and Koy Lipinski followed with an RBI single.
The damage worsened in the sixth when Luke Tiu smashed an inside-the-park home run and Gary Hatfield followed with an RBI triple. Brady Ernest did the final honors later in the inning, doubling to plate the final run of the game, sending the Maroon Knights to Championship Saturday.
East’s lone chance to score came in the top of the sixth when Zach Hunt reached on a walk and was later picked off. Smyth and Lester reached afterwards but Cover fanned the next two batters to avoid any damage.
“Hopefully we’ll learn from that,” Hedinger said. “It’s kind embarrassing to get 10-run ruled in the state tournament. It is what it is. We wasn’t gonna win scoring no runs.”
