VERSAILLES – The Versailles Tigers baseball team defeated the visiting Celina Bulldogs 15-5 in a five-inning run-rule game on the Tigers home field.
“From day one we talked about we’re going to be aggressive,” said Versailles coach Brad Koopman. “We’re going to push it, take that base if they give it to us, and put pressure on any time we can.”
Chase Monnin drove in four runs on two hits with a second-inning 3-run double and doubled in the second plating a run in leading Versailles to the win.
“They seemed to have our number the last couple of years,” Koopman noted. “We had a little struggle with games with them so it was nice to come out and take care of business today.”
Celina took an early 2-0 lead in the top of the first while keeping Versailles off the board in the bottom of the inning sending the game to inning No. 2 with the Tigers trailing 2-0.
“A little bit of a rough start but we’ve scored a ton of runs from behind this year,” Koopman stated. “We’ve come back quite a few times so giving up a few runs isn’t the end for us, they keep fighting.”
Versailles exploded for 11 second-inning runs beginning with 1 out back-to-back Joel Gehret and Gabe White walks and a run-scoring double off the bat of Monnin. Jace Watren drew a walk loading the bases setting up a game-tying Michael Osborne walk. Versailles plated another nine runs in the inning with Ben Subler, AJ Griesdorn, Jace Watren singles and Ross Francis, Joel Gehret, Monnin doubles, and a Celina error.
A Versailles Lane Bergman ground out extended the Tigers lead to 12-2 in the bottom of the third inning.
Celina added 3 runs in the top of the fourth for its final scoring of the night. Versailles tacked on a run in the bottom of the fourth with White scoring on a passed ball and two runs in the bottom of the fifth with Suble racing home on a walk-off passed ball for the run-rule non-conference win.
“We’ll take it wherever we can get it and that’s a tribute to these guys,” Coach Koopman said. “They’re aggressive on the base paths and made it happen.”
Lane Berman picked up the Versailles win throwing 4.0 innings allowing 3 earned runs on 5 hits, 6 walks while striking out 1 batter. Carson Bergman pitched 1 inning of perfect ball in relief.
“Lane came in threw strikes, was around the zone, threw a lot of ground balls especially early on,” Coach Koopman said. “He kept us in there, gave us a shot, and then offense took over.”
BOX SCORE
1 2 3 456 7 R H E
2 0 0 30X X 5 5 3 Celina
0 11 1 12X X 15 12 1 Versailles
