Bounce-back mode has become commonplace in success for Licking County Settlers

GRANVILLE — Much like his Licking County Settlers team, Logan White endured a rough start to the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League season.

But the Licking Valley product, now at Capital University, found his footing, and so did the Settlers. A late surge produced the South Division title and home playoff advantage. However, an off performance against the Hamilton Joes in the opener of their best-of-3 series forced Licking County back into rebound mode Tuesday.

After issuing 13 walks and committing three errors, the Settlers faced a must-win at Hamilton Wednesday after falling 12-7 at Denison University.

"It's all about being scrappy and finding a way, and that's what we have to do again," said White, who had a pair of three-hit games down the stretch after working his way back into the lineup. "I pretty much struggled, but I trusted myself, trusted my hands and started using less movement up there. This summer really helped me, from a mental standpoint, showing that I could fight back from adversity."

The same could be said of Licking County, which rallied from a 10-3 deficit to beat Southern Ohio late in the season. They couldn't quite come back from a 9-2 deficit Tuesday against Hamilton, but were still taking the bounce-back mindset into the elimination game.

"Whenever we're down, we know we can come back. We can put up six runs in a hurry," said Newark product Logan Swonger, now at Tiffin University, who went 2-for-4 Tuesday with an RBI and his 17th stolen base of the season. "We're never out of it. We knew we had to pick it up (at the end of the season) and we did, and we have to do it again."

"I'm 100 percent confident we'll be back here (at Denison on Thursday for Game 3)," head coach Jake Dennis told his team after the game. "We've never lost at their place."

Hamilton, which finished just behind Licking County in the South, clicked for a pair of big two-out hits in the second inning to take a 4-0 lead, and never looked back. The Joes then helped themselves with a huge defensive play. Jumpei Ohashi and Tuane Cope both scored on a two-out throwing error in the second, making it 4-2, and Nick Lukac then laced a shot down the right field line that would have tied it. But Lancaster product Casey Finck, now at Charleston, made a diving catch. He left the game with injury.

By the fifth inning, Hamilton had stretched its lead out to 9-2.  However, the Settlers weren't quite done. They cut it to 9-5, as Swonger and Lukac pulled off a double steal, White drew a bases-loaded walk and Calleb Johnson had an RBI infield hit.

Licking Valley grad Garrett Montgomery (Capital), who relieved and got out of a fifth-inning jam when two runners were thrown out on a double play, was also poised to escape the sixth with a scoreless inning. However, the center fielder dropped a two-out fly ball, allowing two runs to score, and the Settlers couldn't recover. Montgomery allowed one earned run over 2.1 innings and Nick Oyster threw 3.1 scoreless innings, but the damage was done.

"We've been down as much as seven or eight runs in multiple games, and come back," Dennis said. "Most of our losses have come when we didn't throw strikes," he told his team. "Logan Bragg (Licking Valley, Findlay University) throws what, 79 or 80, and he's 4-0."

"Our pitchers need to realize what a shutdown inning is, and not create such a hard situation for the offense," Swonger said. "It's pretty simple. Just hit the mitt. Sometimes it's better to let them put the ball in play, instead of trying to dial up the radar gun."

Swonger, Lukac, Ohashi and Adam Crawford all had two hits for the Settlers, who were out-hit just 12-11 and took eight walks. But a trio of Joes collected three hits apiece and they went through their lineup six times, in a marathon that took three hours, 37 minutes to complete.

"It was definitely the longest game of the year," Dennis said. "I think they (Hamilton) kind of tried to sell out, winning this game. The good thing is, we have a lot of pitching still loaded up, and guys swinging the bats was a good omen. We just have to pitch it better."

dweidig@gannett.com

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This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Bounce-back mode has become commonplace in success for Settlers