Clermont County teams win knothole titles

Eight Clermont County knothole baseball teams took home county tournament titles this past season. Six of those teams talked to The Sun about their season.

Class D Jr. Gold – Williamsburg

In Fayetteville, the Williamsburg Wildcats defeated the New Richmond Crushers to pick up a tournament championship in the squad’s tournament debut.

“The team had a great tournament run this year, going undefeated,” coach Josh Clifton said. “This is the first tournament that the team has played in, and all of the boys were determined to win it all. They played hard and came back from deficits in a couple of the games. They were all very exciting to say the least.”

The tournament built off a solid regular season, the team’s first in kid pitch.

“We had a great season this year,” Clifton said via email. “All of the boys had a good time and learned some solid fundamentals of baseball while having a blast doing it. We have a great group of boys who are all “Wildcat Brothers” that practice and play hard while developing hopefully some long term friendships along the way.”

Throughout the season, the team’s camaraderie shown through and that relationship helped the team succeed on the field.

“Our team strength this year was absolutely our boys willingness to play as a team,” Clifton said. “We had 13 kids on the roster this year (the league max) and all 13 worked hard all season on their batting and fielding. We were able to shift all 13 around in the batting lineup to fairly give kids the same amount of plate appearances and it didn’t matter. They all came to hit, and play good defense in the field every game.”

That thread continued into the way the team prepared for games, according to Clifton.

“I [was] very blessed with the teams attitude,” Clifton said. “From the kids to the parents, we have all bought into this ‘Wildcat Brother’ mentality. We really are like a big family. Everyone always shows up to have fun, hit dingers, play good defense, and win some baseball games.”

Class D Jr. Silver – Batavia

Two forfeits delayed Batavia’s start to the postseason, but the Batavia Bulldogs II knocked off Tealtown twice to win the Class D Jr. silver division title in Fayetteville.

Batavia opened the postseason with a win over Goshen in a game that featured both teams playing shorthanded.

“It was a rough game for us, we had eight kids and we played a very good Goshen team,” Batavia head coach Wally Feck said. “I’m lucky, I’ve got three pretty good pitchers. We pitched well, the kids started hitting really well toward the last half of the season. It carried on through the first game in the tournament.”

Without a full squad, the first game set the tone for how the team would rise to the challenge later in the tournament.

“The defining moment was the first game, we played with eight kids,” Feck said. “Normally I have 11. I had two right fielders, those two had never played catcher in their lives. I had one play for two innings and the other played for three. It was a total team effort. My left fielder was playing second base.”

After the game against Goshen, Batavia defeated Tealtown twice to take the championship.

“It was an exciting three games for us,” Feck said. “Once I saw the brackets, I knew there was no reason we couldn’t win everything. I tried to convey that to the kids. The tournament was rough, I think moreso for the parents and the coaches than the kids.”

Feck closed by praising the team’s work ethic throughout the season.

“I’ve been coaching majority of these kids since they were in kindergarten,” Feck said. “They’ve hit the age where they start settle down, they’re paying attention. They want to learn. They’re not out there because Mom and Dad want them out there, they want to play. They enjoy playing the game and they want to try to get better.”

Class D Sr. Gold – Tealtown

The Tealtown Redstorm took down the New Richmond Strikers twice to win the Class D Sr. gold division title.

The Red Storm knocked off New Richmond in the championships semifinals, earning a spot in the championship match. The Strikers came back through the consolation bracket to force a rematch, which was won by the Redstorm to take the title.

“They worked so hard all year with the ‘never give up’ mentality, which ultimately led them to the undefeated tournament run,” head coach Nick Erras said.

Erras said the team developed well throughout the year.

”Their discipline and determination kept them on track with the adversity they faced,” Erras said. “These boys never gave up despite being down at times during games. Their continued perseverance was definitely their strength this year.”

Erras also praised the team’s ability to shake off rough patches and recover.

”They were always doing what was necessary to recover and bounce back regardless of the challenges they faced,” Erras said.

Class B Jr. – New Richmond

The New Richmond Lions rebounded from the city tournament to take the Class B Jr. title in Milford.

New Richmond defeated the Milford Brew Crew twice, once in the championship semifinals and once in the championship match on July 18. That win capped off a strong rally from the city tournament, according to head coach Todd Higgins.

“Without a doubt we peaked at the right time,” Higgins said. “It started with a disappointing finish in the City tournament. After that our young men decided to regroup and refocus. We put a few good practices together and and played our best baseball of the year in the county tournament.”

Overall, the Lions overcame the unknown at the beginning of the season.

“This was an incredibly fun and rewarding season,” Higgins said. “In the beginning myself and the other coaches were not sure exactly what we had as a team. We lost a couple of key contributors from last seasons team but we also had a couple of new kids who we thought would help us out. We knew we could hit and were strong on the front end of our pitching staff. What we didn’t know was if we could field enough to get anyone out and if we had anybody we could develop to help out our pitching staff. Through the hard work of our boys what was our weakness helped us out big time to win the tournament.”

Higgins credited the team’s success to a trio of strengths: a solid lineup, strong starting pitching and the team’s toughness.

“Multiple times this season we battled back from being down early in ball games,” Higgins said. “This group of young men never gave up though and fought back to win a lot of games in the late or extra innings of a ball game. Prime example was the championship game against the Milford Brew Crew. They had us down early again as they had in a couple of games this year. But just like we had all year we battled and fought our way back and pulled it off in the end.”

Higgins closed by noting how much the team was able to bond throughout the season.

“All of these young men put the work in that’s needed and they have fun doing it,” Higgins said. “They are teammates but also great friends they hang out on and off the field. They pick each other up during games and support each other. I’ve been fortunate enough to coach these young men in baseball for a few years now and most of them in a few other sports as well. Ive won other tournaments, league titles as a coach and player throughout my life. This one be is more special then just about any other one because these young men stuck together and fought hard to win this. We were close a couple of years in the past but finally pulled this one out!”

Class B Sr. – Goshen

The Goshen All-Americans defended home turf, picking up the Class B Sr. championship in Goshen with a win over the Withamsville Renegades on July 20.

After a first-round bye, the All-Americans rolled to four straight wins, capping off an undefeated run by allowing just seven runs in four games.

“Our pitching was on point,” Jason Ritchie said. “Our defense was the best it had been all year. To say these young men stepped up to win this is an understatement.”

Goshen finished the season 19-1 overall. No team scored more than seven runs in a game against them.

”The team grew on and off the field,” Ritchie said. “We were able to take first and second year players and teach them fundamentals and their games elevated and they discovered their love for the game. In all the small mistakes that use to hurt us we fixed, and we still have a few years before high school baseball takes over but I very proud to say we are handing those coaches of Goshen High school an amazing group.”

Defense and pitching led the way, according to Ritchie.

“We have a group of four boys who can start or finish games in our pitching department,” Ritchie said. “We have three solid catchers and the boys are taught to be interchangeable, be great utility players, that’s our strength outfield or infield we try to keep players in their strongest positions but giving opportunity, by leading a game we capitalized on giving players work at different positions and that helped in the long run.”

Ritchie closed by praising the team’s attitude and how they handled themselves off the field.

“The team’s attitude was always positive, which sometimes a small feat when you are dealing with 13-14 [year-old] boys, but they cheered, shook hands, and lifted boys up who struggled in games, The best part of that is they were not asked or directed to do that they took it upon themselves. Our head coach Nick Whitecotton Constantly was telling them to stay up and figure out what they did right or wrong and support each other along and it completely reflecting our play on the field. As they became close on the field they became closer off the field and that to me is the difference between this season and the last two seasons.”

Editor’s note: Teams from Williamsburg (Class A), Amelia (Class C Sr.) and Bethel (Class C Jr. silver) also won county knothole championships. Coaches for those teams did not respond by our print deadline.