In a very difficult year playing against Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Grey Tier rivals, the Garfield G-Men baseball team secured one crucial victory. The G-Men ended their five-game losing streak against MVAC Grey Tier foe LaBrae with a dominant pitching effort, shutting out the Vikings 2-0 last Friday in Garrettsville.
“None of the kids have beaten LaBrae in their time and they were focused and ready and really wanting this game especially with how our season went and not being able to really play for the league,” said Coach Michael Paes. “They wanted to go out there and have a statement victory and that is what we did.”
Since joining the MVAC Grey Tier in the 2022 season, Garfield (9-8, 2-5) has gone just 1-6 against the Vikings, including consecutive seasons of being swept in the regular season series which cost it the chance of at least sharing the MVAC Grey Tier banner.
Although the G-Men’s chances of winning the league championship have evaporated for this year, the 11-year coach acknowledged that they earned some redemption in their conference rivalry against the Vikings.
On Friday, it was a scoreless affair through four innings as the teams were propelled by dominant pitching. Senior right-hander Aidan Hill shut down LaBrae’s offense while the Vikings’ junior righty Austin Rowe also was masterful.
Garfield struck in the bottom of the fifth inning thanks to a Vikings’ defensive miscue. After the G-Men put runners at first and second with one out, junior right fielder Carson Norton hit a groundball to junior shortstop Vince Delvecchio, who flipped the ball to senior second baseman Nathan Goldner for the second out, but Goldner committed a throwing error to junior first baseman Lucas Glaser, which allowed junior catcher Brock Pecisek to score from second base, pushing Garfield ahead 1-0.
As the California University of Pennsylvania commit Hill continued dazzling on the mound, Garfield added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth frame when he delivered a RBI-single to left field, doubling the lead to 2-0.
“We have lost a lot of games in the seventh inning,” noted Paes. “Out of the eight games that we lost, six of the losses has been in the last inning, either extra innings or the seventh inning. When you think about that, kind of incredible, it is kind of insane in a negative way, so to get some insurance really helps us out.”
Heading into the seventh inning, Paes said that Hill had already thrown 115 pitches in the first six frames and was 10 pitches away from reaching the 125-pitch limit for any high school pitcher in an Ohio High School Athletic Association baseball game. If Hill reached that limit before recording the final out, he would have to be lifted for a reliever.
Hill made the most of out of his final 10 pitches, retiring the Vikings in order to fuel Garfield to its second league victory of the season.
“He got the first two and what happened with that third batter, that was his last batter. I told him that and he knew it,” Paes said. “When I yelled out there ‘This is the last one, this is the one,’ and he went behind 2-0 on that last kid and then two foul balls and a strike three swinging. It was a great pitching performance by him.”
Hill finished the game by allowing no runs on only four hits, six walks while striking out 11 batters.
In addition to receiving a stellar pitching performance, the G-Men’s victory also snapped their six-game losing streak, which involved four consecutive MVAC Grey Tier defeats in that span.
According to Paes, the G-Men had benefited from strong pitching over the course of the six-game losing streak but had suffered from poor defense and less than stellar hitting performances. Of Garfield’s 54 runs allowed this year, only 19 of them have been earned.
“It has just been brutal, and it is definitely not the pitching, we had a kid that had not been throwing very much and he threw against John F. Kennedy Catholic and held them two runs,” said Paes. “He did a heck of a job and we could not get one run to help them or support them, so it has just been a year of a lot of struggles at the plate.”
Seeded 20th in the OHSAA Division V playoffs this year, Paes said that the G-Men seek to engineer a winning streak at the end of the season to fuel them for the 2026 season.
Following a home game against MVAC Grey Tier rival Liberty on Tuesday and a road game against Portage County foe Ravenna on Thursday, the G-Men will face Lowelville on the road on Friday at 5 p.m.
