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2022 OHSAA Tournament Wrap-up: State Tournament Has Its Share Of Surprises

June 14, 2022
Bruce Hefflinger
PBR Ohio Senior Writer

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To view the 2022 OHSAA Tournament Wrap-Up, please click here.

To view the OHSAA Final Four: The Heat Sheet, please click here.

2022 OHSAA Game Write-Ups:
State Final Game Write-ups: D-I: #24 Northview-#10 Grove City | D-II: #21 Chardon-#9 Hoban | D-III: #7 Waynedale-#22 Milan Edison | D-IV: #17 Russia-#2 Lincolnview
Semifinal Game Write-ups: D-I: #24 Northview-#27 Kenston | #10 Grove City-#2 Mason | D-II: #9 Hoban-#3 Badin | #21 Chardon-#20 Bishop Hartley | D-III: #7 Waynedale-#4 Liberty Union | #22 Milan Edison-#23 Roger Bacon | D-IV: #2 Lincolnview-Tiffin Calvert | #17 Russia-#5 Newark Catholic
State Preview: Division I | Division II | Division III | Division IV

To view the 2022 OHSAA Tournament 64-Team Regional Preview, please click below: 

To view the Final Team Rankings, click below:

***** ALL-STATE TEAMS WILL BE RELEASED NEXT WEEK *****
To nominate a player for the All-State Teams, please click here.

2022 OHSAA Tournament Wrap-up: State Tournament Has Its Share Of Surprises

AKRON - While we await the upcoming release of the Prep Baseball Report All-State Teams - which will attempt to honor all of the deserving players in Ohio - the conclusion of the state tournament on Saturday means the end of the 2022 high school season.

With the 94th annual State Baseball Tournament coming to a close, what stood out about this year’s event held at Canal Park? Along with the near-perfect weather for all three days of the tourney, the biggest surprise of the tournament was that the top senior pitcher in each division lost.

In Division I, Mason senior southpaw Brendan Garula, a Cincinnati commit, lost in the semis to Grove City. In Division II, Nik Copenhaver of Badin, a Washington State signee, was beaten by Hoban in the semifinals. Division III saw Jacob Miller, the top-rated senior right-hander in the state and the number eight righty in the nation, a likely high selection in the upcoming MLB Draft who is committed to Louisville, went down to Waynedale. And finally in D-IV, left-handed standout Landon Price of Lincolnview, an Ohio State commit, lost to Russia in the state finals, the first defeat in his high school career.

Here Are A Few Other Items Of Interest:

- “What might have been” - that is something that has gone through the minds of so many coaches, players and fans the past few weeks. That is certainly the case for the four state runners-up at state this year, helping prove that it truly is a game of inches, or feet, or number of pitches ... In D-IV, what if Price had been at 124 pitches instead of 125 and able to throw to one more batter? With two outs in the sixth in a one-run game, Russia proceeded to put the next seven batters on base once the Lincolnview lefty was no longer on the mound while the Lancers proceeded to score two in the 7th. .. In D-I, Grove City was ahead 1-0 in the top of the first with runners on first and third and two out. What if the Bulldogs had one or two more big hits in the inning and Northview had to play from a bigger deficit? .. Hoban led 5-3 in the top of the sixth with one on and one away for Chardon. Three of the next four batters were hit by a pitch. What would have happened had they had to “earn” their way on base? .. And finally in Division III with the game tied in the top of the eighth and two aboard with one down, Dominic Dymond hit a ball off the fence down the left-field line that was just foul. Three innings prior, in the bottom of the fifth with Waynedale batting with two on and one away, a ball hit to third resulted in a tag out of the runner going to third for out number two, but the throw to first was ruled safe on a bang-bang play. Instead of the third out, Waynedale still had life and scored to tie the game; it eventually won in extra innings.

- Hitting sure picks up in the finals after most teams throw their aces in the semifinals. Lincolnview and Chardon, with nine hits each, had the most hits of any team on the first two days of action. But come Saturday for the finals, the average number of hits was 8.1 per team. Russia with 13 and Chardon with 10 had the most. Only Grove City had fewer hits in the championship game than the semis among the eight teams playing on Saturday.

- A low number of hits was definitely the case in Division I. There were only 31 hits total by the four teams in the tournament, just 5.2 per team each game.

- Teams with the fewest errors went 8-4 in the tournament. It was the same record for those whose pitchers walked and hit the fewest batters. However in the finals, state champs combined to make 10 errors while the losing teams finished with seven. That is a number that doesn't happen often.

- Here’s another number that doesn’t add up. State champions struck out at the plate more than their opponents. Waynedale fanned 22 times while the opposition of the Golden Bears whiffed 15 times. For Northview it was 15 and 10. Russia struck out 13 times while their pitchers only struck out nine in the two games. Division II champ Chardon broke even in that category with nine and nine. The surprising number for the Hilltoppers was left on base, with Chardon leaving 19 runners stranded in the two wins.

- With eight hit-by-pitches thrown by Hoban hurlers, Chardon set an unofficial record for getting plunked the most ever in a state game. The 11 combined HBPs in the contest also set an unofficial mark. Just missing a record was Northview with nine stolen bases in the state finals, one off the all-time state mark for a Division I championship game set by Moeller in 2012 against Westlake.

- The sixth inning was big for championship teams. Russia scored seven in the sixth against Lincolnview and Chardon put up six in both the state semifinals and finals. Northview pushed across one insurance run in the sixth inning of the state final victory over Grove City. For Waynedale, it was the fifth inning that proved key. The D-III state champs only scored six runs combined in the two games but three of those were in the fifth.

- Speaking of Waynedale, the Golden Bears totaled just a dozen hits in the state tournament and seven came from the top two in the batting order. Dylan Raber had three hits in the leadoff spot while Josiah Raber produced four hits in the two-hole. So how big are the top two in the batting order? In only two out of 12 games did the top two have more hits combined on a losing team.

- While Josiah Raber had four hits as did Braylon Cordonnier of Russia, the two players with the most hits were Leo Colombi of Chardon and Lincolnview’s Price, each with five hits.

- Awards for the tournament go to … 1) Chardon for best student section, 2) Milan Edison vs Waynedale for most fans in the stands (1 p.m. final on Saturday is a main attraction with fans from game one still around and game three in the stadium early), 3) Jacob Miller for being the player drawing the most interest to watch. It all made for an eventful and entertaining three days of action at the state tournament.

2022 Spring High School Season Content

To view the Heat Sheet, which provides the top velocity we have seen this spring, please click here.

To view out Spring Scout Blog with videos and reports from the spring, please click here.

To view the Team Rankings, click below:

To view the Teams of the Week, click below:

To view the Preseason All-State Teams, click below:

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