Pinconning survived a pair of challenges from Tawas Area and Ogemaw Heights to advance to next weekends regional tournament.
Tawas Area's Seth Thomas rounds third and scores against Pinconning on Saturday.
Trevor Karbowksi winds up for a pitch against Ogemaw Heights at Saturday's district tournament.
Linda Eyer
The Falcons' Blaine Powley tossed a four-inning two-hitter to lead Ogemaw past Standish-Sterling.

PINCONNING - May 30, 2009 - Pinconning was a heavy favorite heading into Saturday's Division 2 district tournament. The top-ranked Spartans ran through the regular season with a gaudy 31-2 record (plus a pre-district win over Gladwin) and save for an early challenge from NEMC runner-up John Glenn had little trouble with its conference brethren.

None of that meant anything Saturday as Tawas Area and Ogemaw Heights -- teams the Spartans demolished in four league games by an aggregate score of 57-2 -- weren't ready to concede the district title without a battle.

The Spartans survived a challenge from Tawas Area with a 6-3 semifinal victory, then pulled away late to defeat Ogemaw Heights 12-4.

"It's tough to come in 32-2 because that doesn't mean anything now," said Pinconning coach Jeff Sanak. "If we win by 15 runs it's expected; if we win 6-3 everyone's wondering what's wrong."

Ogemaw led the championship briefly after Jake Wangler's first inning RBI single, but the Spartans came back with three runs of their own in the bottom of the frame, including a two-run single by winning pitcher Lucas Foco, to take the lead for good.

"We had a big let down defensively," said Ogemaw coach Jeremiah Peace. "Alex (Jennings) was throwing great; he struck out the side, but we booted the ball, (Pinny's Andy) Shoemaker had an absolutely perfect bunt, then another error and we come off the field down 3-1."

After a rain delay, the Spartans opened up a 6-1 lead with a three-run second inning that was capped by Coty Swinson's two-run single. Ogemaw scratched back to within 6-3 in the fifth, but Sanak said by then his hitters were untracked.

"Once we got to 6-1, I felt pretty good," Sanak said. "We were hitting the ball, and even though it got a little closer I knew we could keep putting runs up."

The Spartans proceeded to put the game away with a six-run fifth inning of their own.

"We knew we had to be aggressive early in the count against Foco," Peace said. "You really don't want to be up there against him with two strikes.

"We kept scrapping for runs and we did OK, but with someone like Foco on the mound you have to make every baserunner count, and while we didn't quite do that, we were able to move some around and put up a few runs.

"But you just can't give runs to the No. 1 team in the state and then try to come back against that pitching."

Bret Saha and Swinson each had three hits, with Shoemaker and Charles Hine each adding two for the Spartans. Foco allowed five hits and one walk while striking out eight.

Jennings took the loss, allowing 12 runs (five earned) on seven hits while striking out four in 4-1/3 innings. Eric Noble finished up with 1-2/3 innings of two-hit relief.

Jennings had a hit and two RBIs and Nathan Noffsinger had two hits for the Falcons.

Tawas, which early in the year had a tough time even getting games played due to bad weather and finished with a 10-14 record, gave Pinny all it wanted before going down.

A first-inning error proved costly for the Braves as it led to four Pinconning runs, but after that Tawas settled down and played its best game of the season.

"(Justin) Bielby threw a good game," Sanak said. "They had a bad play in the first, but after that they made some nice plays that cost us some runs."

"I'm so proud of how the boys played," said Tawas coach Lindsey Bielby. "We had the bases loaded twice, but (Casey) Pashak was able to pitch out of it. It would have been an amazing upset."

The Braves turned two double plays, had third baseman Seth Thomas and left fielder Kurtis Branham each throw out Spartans at home.

"After that first inning, we outscored them 3-2, so that really was the difference," Bielby said. "Justin really had his curve ball breaking well. He was up all night for Project Graduation the night before; I told him we should have kept him up all night before games more often."

Tawas got two hits apiece from Seth Thomas, Tim Schmidt and Justin Bielby.

Pashak picked up the victory, with Foco pitching the seventh and earning the save.

"Both Ogemaw and Tawas were better teams than when we first played them," Sanak said. "Tawas especially. When we played them the first time we were 20-1 and they were something like 3-3. Getting those games in made a big difference."

The Falcons defeated Standish-Sterling in the other semifinal as Blaine Powley tossed a four-inning two-hitter, walking one and striking out five.

"Blaine's been battling an injury the past few weeks," Peace said. "But he stepped up and did a great job.

"We got a huge momentum boost from a great defensive play from Charlie Murdock. After that something really clicked for our kids."

Ogemaw scored in every inning, including five times in the third and six more in the fourth, and needed just nine hits to score its 15 runs.

Jarritt Orlando had two hits and three RBIs; Powley added two hits and two RBIs; Nathan Noffsinger had two hits and two RBIs; and Andrew Funsch had a hit and drove in four runs for the Falcons.

Ogemaw finished at 19-17.

"We had to scrap through a very, very tough schedule and our kids did a great job," Peace said. "Some of them had to learn on the job and we certainly improved since our first game.

"We lose a lot of kids who have given a lot to us. It's always hard to replace people, but we have a core group of juniors who really love baseball, and that's a good start."