'We have the biggest target on our back': Waynedale scores late to sweep Dalton

APPLE CREEK — The target has been on Waynedale's back for years.

The Golden Bears have been at the top of the Wayne County Athletic League for a solid half decade. And then they won the 2022 Division III state championship, making the bullseye much larger.

Despite going through some early-season bumps, Waynedale won its third straight game Tuesday against Dalton, scoring the go-ahead run in the sixth inning for a 5-4 win to sweep the Bulldogs in an early-week series.

"We knew we were going to see a different side of teams this year," Waynedale senior Trey Barkman said. "We have the biggest target on our back. I mean, who doesn't want to beat the defending state champs?"

Facing Norwayne and Dalton — the two programs that split the league title with the Bears over the past two seasons (Norwayne in 2022, Dalton in 2021) — wasn't exactly a warm welcome into the 2023 season, but Waynedale emerged from what will likely be two of its toughest league series with a 3-1 record.

A lot of that has to do with the two guys at the top of the pitching rotation: Trey Barkman and Otto Solorzano.

It was Barkman's turn Tuesday, and he finished the day five strikeouts and one walk while allowing five hits and one earned run. That qualifies as an off day for the Ohio University-bound Barkman, which should spell good things for Waynedale down the road.

"I didn't have my best stuff today," Barkman said. "My arm was a little sore. But I'll take a win any day, however it comes."

A day after getting completely shut down by Solorzano — the junior lefty had 15 strikeouts in a complete-game 5-0 win Monday — Dalton came into Tuesday's matchup against Barkman eager to get back on the right track.

"We worked on a couple things with our pitching machine, getting our foot down earlier, taking extra batting practice," Dalton coach Scott Huth said of preparation for Barkman, whose fastball consistently sits in the mid-80s. "We tried to slow it down a little bit. We had better approaches at the plate today. We came in confident. After losing 5-0 yesterday, we could have rolled over and gave up today, but we fought."

Still, Barkman did his job, leaving the mound after five innings with a 3-2 lead.

That's when things got weird.

The Bears actually added a run in the bottom of the fifth, giving sophomore Shane Coblentz a two-run cushion heading into the sixth. However, miscommunication on a fly ball in foul territory with two outs gave Dalton extra life. Instead of walking back to the dugout after making the inning-ending out, Brady Hignight drove in two runs to tie the game at 4-all.

It was eerily similar to Waynedale's 3-2 loss to Norwayne a week earlier, when it saw a late 2-0 lead evaporate and transform into a 3-2 loss.

But Coblentz made sure that didn't happen.

After walking to get on base in the sixth, Coblentz advanced to second with Gavin Spitler at the plate. And Waynedale got aggressive. With two strikes on Spitler, Coblentz took off from second base. Spitler hit a ground ball to shortstop, which Dalton's Jack Steiner fielded cleanly, making the routine play over the first base to throw out Spitler.

There was just one problem for Dalton. Coblentz kept going.

"I had a good jump and saw the shortstop was going to throw it over, so I just took off," Coblentz said.

Coblentz ended up scoring from second on the ground out, proving to be the winning run.

"We really have tried to emphasize we want to be aggressive on the basepaths," Waynedale coach Lucas Daugherty said. "We take two bases when we can instead of settling for one, and that's what he did. I thought he got a great jump on the pitch and once he was going, I think he had it set in his mind he was going to keep going."

Timmy Short closed the game out for Waynedale, striking out two in a hitless inning while Coblentz ended up as the winning pitcher. The Bears had five different players record their five hits: Tristan Franks, Jaiden Barnes (2 RBIs), Barkman, Solorzano and Coblentz.

While the Bears are off to a 3-1 start, they are still trying to find their offense, scoring just 3.8 runs per game.

"We've had early Saturday morning practices where we're just hitting in the cages, getting reps and reps and reps," Barkman said. "I think confidence just needs to come. ... If we get confidence in ourselves, we'll get it going."

Dalton outhit the Bears, but a few mistakes in the field proved costly for the 'Dawgs, whose pitchers Justin Basinger (4.0 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 ER, 1 K, 2 BB) and Will Carmichael (2.0 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 Ks, 2 BB) allowed just two combined earned runs.

"We're not playing defense real well yet," Huth said. "(Monday), they beat us 5-0 but we felt like we gave them three or four of the runs. Tonight, three runs they got in the one inning we felt like were unearned. ... If we can just get through this early season portion and settle down on defense, I think we're going to be OK."

Talan Greegor had the biggest day at the plate for Dalton, going 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Steiner, Hignight, Carmichael, Basinger, Cade Mullet and Bryce Johnson all had hits as well.

"We haven't given up," Huth said of his team, who has lost three in a row to quality Garaway and Waynedale teams. "We play hard every game. Guys stay positive in the dugout. We're young. We're learning on the fly."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Baseball: Waynedale sweeps Dalton in crucial WCAL matchup