By Nate Calvin
COLDWATER — The Bryan offense continued its high scoring ways and Dom James dominated on the mound to lead the Golden Bears to their second straight ACME state crown as they beat Archbold 10-1 at Veterans Field in Coldwater on Monday evening.
This was the second consecutive year that the NWOAL rivals squared off in the championship game with Bryan earning a 3-0 victory last year. This was Archbold’s fourth straight appearance in the final after winning back to back titles themselves in 2016 and 2017.
Bryan jumped out to the early lead with a Breven Deckrosh two-run single in the bottom of the first inning to take the early lead 2-0 lead. The Bluestreaks threatened in the top of the second when they loaded the bases, but Bryan pitcher Dom James would end the threat with a strikeout. Bryan added another run in their half of the second and could’ve added more but a base running error led to a double play to get Archbold out of the inning.
Bryan continued to stretch their lead in the bottom of the third inning when Benny Roebuck scored on an Archbold error and Noah Tressler added an RBI double to make it a 5-0 lead for the Golden Bears after three innings.
After two more runs by Bryan in the fourth, Noah Garcia drove in the lone run on the night for the Bluestreaks in the top of the fifth inning to cut the Bryan lead to 7-1. Bryan would put the game on ice with three runs in the bottom of the fifth to make it 10-1.
The journey began to this all NWOAL championship game on Saturday for both teams. For the Streaks, they used a fast start to defeat Troy 9-4 when they scored four runs in the first inning and five more in second to cruise to win. Archbold was led at the plate by Chase Kohler who was 1-3 with three RBIs while DJ Newman and Noah Garcia were each 1-4 with a pair runs batted in.
In their semifinal matchup with Minster on Sunday, Archbold fell behind 3-1 before they rallied scoring twice in the fourth to tie the game 3-3 and took the lead 5-3 with two more runs in the fifth inning. Newman went the distance on the hill to get the win and he also helped himself at the plate by finishing 1-3 with two walks and 2 RBIs.
The Bryan bats were as hot as the weather in their first two games as they totaled 22 runs to advance to the title game. In their quarterfinal game on Saturday, Bryan scored two runs in the opening inning to put West Liberty-Salem in an early hole.
The Golden Bears continued their offensive onslaught with a run in the third, four in the fourth and five more runs in the sixth to go on to 12-4 win. The Bryan offense was led by two RBIs each from Logan Clemens, Brooks Brown, and Deckrosh while Roebuck went all seven innings on the mound to earn the win.
Sunday’s semifinal win over Anthony Wayne featured more offense with Bryan plating three runs in the first and five runs in the second to take a commanding 8-0 lead as they went on to a 10-5 win. Connor Arthur got the Golden Bears off to a good start with a triple which was followed by a single from Nate Miller. Arthur ended the night 2-3 with a walk.
Nate can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com