TIFFIN – A lead always makes pitching easier.
“It’s almost like a weight off my shoulders,” Lexington’s Tyler Galownia said.
He manufactured the Minutemen’s opening run in the top of the first drawing a four-pitch walk, advancing to second on a wild pitch, then scoring on a hard hit ball by Graham Clark. That was all the added assurance he needed to pitch five-seed Lexington past three-seed Wapakoneta 5-1 in a Division III district semifinal at Tiffin University’s Paradiso Athletic Complex.
“Against Norwalk we didn’t score until the fifth inning, it was just intense the whole time,” Galownia said of their sectional championship. “You don’t know when you’re gonna, or if you’re gonna, get a run … we came out today and put one up in the first and two in the third to make it 3-0 and give us a little bit of wiggle room.”
He faced no more than four batters in each of the first four innings before getting the Minutemen out of bases loaded jams in the fifth and the sixth to preserve the five-run lead the offense had built adding two more runs in the fifth. All while working with possibly the tightest strike zone he has seen this season.
“It’s tough, but they were working with the same exact zone, so you just gotta bear down and find the zone any way you can,” Galownia said. “It’s gonna change every game, you have some really good ones and really bad ones, you just never know.
“The last two innings I could not find my curveball and it was starting to eat at me. I really wanted to get through the whole game, but it just wasn’t in the books. But I had all the confidence in Cole (Eichorn), he came in and shut the door.”
After throwing 118 pitches with four strikeouts and five walks, Eichorn came on in relief and secured the program’s first district championship appearance in nine years.
“It’s so awesome for our team,” coach J.R. Davis said. “That’s one thing they were talking about when we came in here, they’re used to districts and they’re used to being at that level. But I’m ecstatic for these seniors because they’ve been playing together since they were really young. One goal was to get to the district championship, then keep going as far as you can.
“This means a lot to me, but I know it means more to them.”
Galownia finished 3-for-3 at the plate with one run, one RBI, one walk, and one hit by pitch. Markale Martin had two hits, two runs, one RBI, one walk; Eichorn and Carson Fisher scored the other team runs, Fisher also had an RBI.
“I was just trying to get on base so we could manufacture runs, put the bat to the ball,” Galownia said. “Baseball is a fun game, some kids are lining out at 110 and you got me getting little 57 mile per hour singles … you just gotta make sure you can get on base no matter what.”
“When we got someone on base, we’d get a bunt and some clutch hitting, that was a big thing for us,” Davis added. “We’re either scoring nine runs a game, or only one or two, it’s just all about execution at that point. Every time we had someone on base we executed and got somebody in, that’s how you win big games against big opponents.”
Lexington will return to Heminger Field on the campus of Tiffin University on Thursday at 5 p.m. to face two-seed Sylvania Southview as the Minutemen are seeking their first district championship since 2017.
“It’s awesome, one final ride with my best friends,” Galownia said. “We’ve been playing since travel ball, I couldn’t pick a more fun group to play with.”
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Lexington baseball into district championship, first time since 2017