By LYNN GROLL

groll@crescent-news.com

A bizarre ending capped off the opening night of the District 1 ACME Tournament at Defiance High School's Booster Field on Wednesday at Tinora captured a 10-9 triumph over Archbold in eight innings following Defiance's 25-6 trouncing of Pettisville in the lid-lifter.

The Rams (16-1) pulled off a wild rally in the bottom of the seventh inning to erase an 8-4 Archbold advantage to knot the game up. Tinora's first two hitters of the inning reached safely thanks to back-to-back Archbold fielding miscues. No. 9 hitter Joe Bodenbender drove home the first Tinora run with a double before lead-off hitter Landon Drewes plated two more with a sharp single up the middle to draw the Rams within one, 8-7. Still with no outs recorded in the frame, Trey Meyer laid down a sacrifice bunt to advance Drewes into scoring position but a wild throw to first allowed Meyer to reach safely while Drewes scampered to third.

A passed ball during Zach Beilharz's at-bat allowed Drewes to dash home with the tying run.

Beilharz later flew out before Ethan McKenney and Luke Willitzer each walked to load the bases.

With one out and the bases packed, Archbold recorded its second out of the inning on a 3-2 putout on Jon Gerken's chopper to first base.

That brought up Tinora senior-to-be Dillon Cereghin with the game on the line and that's when things got rather whacky.

Cereghin delivered with what at the time was a single into the right-center field gap that easily scored the winning run, only to have it taken away minutes later.

As Tinora celebrated on the Booster Field infield grass, Archbold had retrieved the ball hit by Cereghin and threw it into shortstop Corey Wyse, who threw the ball to third baseman Paxson Miller.

Once the ball was in Miller's mitt, he ran to third base and stepped on the bag to protest whether or not the Tinora base runner on second base at the time of Cereghin's at-bat had actually run all the way to third base.

Once Miller received a safe call from the field umpire, he then ran across the diamond to first base and touched the bag there and still didn't receive an out signal as the Archbold protest continued. The Archbold dugout, Miller and the rest of the Streaks adamantly continued their challenge that the Tinora runner on second didn't run all the way to third.

After his jaunt to first base, Miller again ran back to third base and touched the bag as both the plate and field umpire got together between the pitching mound and first base to communicate what the other witnessed. After a few seconds of deliberation, home plate umpire Ralph Ruffer flipped his thumb into the air and called the Tinora base runner at second base out for not running all the way to third base.

Archbold skipper Kevin "Scoop" Miller knew the base runner at second base did not run all the way to third after Cerghin's hit and Miller was hoping an umpire had witnessed the same thing.

"I watched all four runners and they all hit the base except the guy going to third," explained MIller. "He was excited, he cut off third about 20 feet short to go high-five the guy that had scored the winning run. We saw it but that doesn't mean the umpire is going to see it. Fortunately for us they made the right call there. Those things happen and I'm sure they're going to learn from that."

With a second life, the Streaks put themselves back on top of the scoreboard in the top of the eighth frame on Trey Westrick's RBI double, but the Rams had an answer.

With the Rams down to their final out they had Bodenbender on third base and Trey Meyer at the plate. Meyer, who relieved starting pitcher Landon Drewes in the sixth inning, raked a hard liner between second and first to knot game at nine apiece.

That brought Zach Beilharz to the dish with the potential winning run standing on first base. Meyer pilfered second base on the second pitch of the Beilharz at-bat before scoring the winning run on a single to right.

"We have seven seniors," explained Tinora coach Kraig Beilharz. "Taylor (Wiemken) is out now, he's not going to be playing with us anymore. He's our third baseman and I think that was a disruption to the team to have Taylor out. But Taylor was on the bench and honestly I think he helped out a lot with keeping the other seniors focused. We got older kids that are fighters that want to win.

"They get through adversity, they've been through that situation a lot and done it a lot," added the Tinora skipper. "They all go to the plate and they battle hard and somehow they try to win and they do. I give them all the credit in the world. It's kind of infectious to the kids when they see upperclassmen doing that. We have a tremendous group of underclassmen too. We had kids on the bench tonight that didn't play that are really good players. We've got the older seniors and then we got the younger kids filling in. When you have that mindset it really goes through the whole team."

Tinora will now play the second game tonight at Bryan's Sumpter Field at approximately 8 p.m. against Patrick Henry, who was a 4-3 winner over Bryan on Wednesday. In the first game at Bryan, Archbold will play the Golden Bears at 5:30 p.m.

"It was a game for the ages," remarked Miller about the Blue Streaks' loss. "A lot of people will remember this game for a long time. Both teams did some great things out there. Give Tinora a lot of credit because their backs were against the wall there."

The opener at Defiance on Wednesday turned into a rout after Pettisville took a 4-2 edge into the second inning. Defiance went for four runs in the second before scoring six times in the third, twice in the fifth and then 11 runs in the sixth to invoke the mercy rule.

"They did a lot of damage with two outs," said Blackbird mentor Paul Bishop. "We just have to finish the deal. An error here and then it opens a door and they're a good hitting ballclub. They found a lot of spots to put it."

Ethan Rohlf highlighted many stars at the plate for Defiance by going 5-for-5 with two singles, two doubles and a three-run homer in the second inning. Rohlf drove home seven and spelled double-trouble for Pettisville by also picking up the victory in relief of starter Dace Kime.

"We had some clutch hitting there early on," said DHS skipper Eric Sprague. "Ethan got that big three-run bomb and after that we kind of loosened up at the plate and it became contagious. It was a good day with the sticks.

"I was more impressed with our defense," added Sprague. "We played great defense. Lately we've been making errors and we made no errors tonight. We executed on offense and we executed on defense and that's what Defiance baseball is all about."

Craig Gutman and Corbin Stykemain also hit homers for the Bulldogs who will play archrival Napoleon tonight at 8 p.m. at Defiance. Napoleon posted a 1-0 win over Edon on Wednesday in the early game at Bryan. Edon and Pettisville will meet in the opener tonight at 5:30 p.m. in an elimination game.

Linescores

Defiance 246 02(11) - 25 21 0

Pettisville 402 0 0 0 - 6 6 3

Records: Defiance 16-10, Pettisville 9-9.

Winning pitcher: Ethan Rohlf (3 1/3 innings, 0 runs, 3 strikeouts, 2 walks). Others: Dace Kime, Alex Nofziger.

Losing pitcher: Quinn Nofziger (2 2/3 innings, 12 runs, 7 hits, 4 strikeouts, 3 walks). Others: Zane Miller, Harris King, Jordan Klopfenstein.

Leading hitters: (Defiance, 21 hits) - Alex Nofziger 2 singles; Mark Sebring 3 singles, 3 RBI; Ethan Rohlf 2 singles, 2 doubles, home run, 7 RBI; Dace Kime 2 singles, double, 4 RBI; Dakota Westrick double; Craig Gutman single, home run, 4 RBI; Corbin Stykemain single, double, home run. (Pettisville, 6 hits) - Jordan Klopfenstein 2 doubles; Clay Norris double.

Archbold 300 113 01 - 9 9 3

Tinora 103 000 42 - 10 9 4

Records: Tinora 16-1, Archbold 15-7.

Winning pitcher: Trey Meyer (3 innings, 4 runs, 5 hits, 2 strikeouts, 2 walks). Other: Landon Drewes.

Losing pitcher: Steven Kinsman (2 innings, 3 runs, 3 hits, 0 strikeouts, 3 walks). Other: David Rupp.

Leading hitters: (Archbold, 9 hits) - Trey Westrick single, double; Corey Walker 2 singles, double, 3 RBI. (Tinora, 9 hits) - Landon Drewes 2 singles; Luke Willitzer double; Joe Bodenbender single, double.

Patrick Henry 103 000 0 - 4 5 0

Bryan 000 030 0 - 1 9 2

Winning pitcher: Brian Kline (7 innings, 3 runs, 9 hits, 1 strikeout, 2 walks).

Losing pitcher: Alex Nossman (7 innings, 4 runs, 5 hits, 8 strikeouts, 4 walks).

Leading hitters: (Patrick Henry, 5 hits). (Bryan, 9 hits) - Matt Chaney 3 singles, Shawn Osborn single, 2 RBI.