It has been several years since the Streetsboro Rockets’ baseball team took on Portage County rival Windham. The Rockets celebrated senior day in style by shutting out Windham 10-0 in six innings last Friday at American Legion Field.
“It was nice,” said Streetsboro Coach Chris Scisciani. “It was a great night for our seniors. They played really well, and I was happy that we were able to get 11 hits and bounce back from a poor hitting the day before against Chagrin Falls.”
The last time the Rockets (12-5, 8-3) and Windham faced each other was during the 2016 season but at that point, Windham had already left the Portage Trail Conference to join the Northeastern Athletic Conference Stripes Division. Although the teams were no longer league rivals, the 21-year coach said that the Portage County roots still ran deep between the teams.
“We have not played them in a long while and it was cool playing Windham,” he added. “Once we changed all of these new leagues and everything, we have not really played any of those schools anymore so it is nice when you can always get a game or two against some of those local opponents here in town.”
On Friday, Streetsboro struck quickly in the bottom of the second inning on a RBI-single to center field by junior center fielder Scott Wilson to take a 1-0 lead, and then scored a total of seven runs in the third and fourth innings to take a commanding 8-0 advantage.
With the exception of a 2-1 loss against Chagrin Falls on May 8, it was the continuation of a week that witnessed the Rockets dominate offensively by combining to score 34 runs over four games, posting a 3-1 record and stay in the in the chase for the Metro Athletic Conference.
According to Scisciani, the Rockets success at the plate was a result of quality at-bats in each game.
“When you end up having a quality at-bat and a number of quality at-bats that count throughout the game, usually the higher number of quality at-bats, the more runs you score,” he said. “You go back and look at the games you lost, and you count the number of quality at-bats in the games you won, it is pretty telling.”
Streetsboro scored three runs in the bottom of the third frame on five hits, highlighted by a RBI-single to center field by senior first baseman Josh Boldin, a RBI-single to left field by senior right-hander Jack Batten and a RBI-groundout to first base by junior shortstop Brett Epple.
The Rockets added four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, as its senior trio continued to fuel them as Craft delivered a RBI-single to left field and Batten scorched a three-run triple to center field, pushing Streetsboro ahead 8-0.
Streetsboro scored another run in the fifth and added one more in the sixth inning, which automatically triggered the mercy rule, ending the game early as the home team built a lead of 10 runs after five innings.
Streetsboro’s offensive eruption helped it cruise to its fourth win in five games while the Bombers suffered their fifth loss in six games.
Although the teams no longer are conference foes, Scisciani said that they are tied to each other by a rich tradition of baseball in their respective programs as well as the bond the athletes share by being students at Portage County schools.
“It was special to play them, we have a couple of kids on our team and they go to school together at Maplewood and one of the kids on our team, his dad played for Windham back in the day,” he remarked. “He has some cousins that are on the Windham team so that was kind of cool, there were a lot of people there because it was senior night and both sides had people cheering for them.”
The teams will enjoy one more week of regular season play before beginning postseason play in the Ohio High School Athletic Association playoffs. Streetsboro earned an eighth seed in the OHSAA Division IV playoffs while the Bombers will be seeded ninth in the OHSAA Division VII postseason.
After a road game against Norton on Tuesday night, a home game against Field on Wednesday and a home contest against Portage County rival Crestwood on Thursday, the Rockets will host Howland in the regular season finale on Friday at American Legion Field at 5 p.m.
Meanwhile, Windham’s season will end with a road game against NAC rival Lordstown in Warren on Friday at 5 p.m.
