Orrville Baseball Wins District Title!!

It's been a dozen years since the Orrville baseball program won a district title. That streak ended last night at Norwayne High School as the Red Riders rode the backs of dominant pitching and defeated Tuslaw by a 4-1 score.

They will advance to the Massillon Regional next Thursday May 24th to face Orwell Grand Valley (the #1 seed from the Euclid District. Grand Valley was also the #2 team in all of Division 3 according to the final OHSBCA Coaches Poll.  The game will start at 2pm in the afternoon.  The field in Massillon is right behind the football stadium (click here for a map).

The other regional semifinal will pit Youngstown Ursuline against LaGrange Keystone.  The winners will meet Friday May 25th at 5pm for a trip to Huntington Park in Columbus and the State Final Four.

Back to the Riders run to a district title.  Pretty impressive that the Riders two starting pitchers in the district round gave up a TOTAL of TWO HITS in both games combined.  Juniors Trevor Kerr and Stuart Schley tossed matching 1-hitters against Norwayne and Tuslaw respectively to punch the Riders' ticket to regionals.
 I don't know anything about Grand Valley, but I do know you can go a long way with good pitching, and it sounds like we have that.  Our offense has been grinding out timely hits too, and you need that too.

The last time Orrville won a district title in baseball was the year 2000.  They also won districts in 1995, 1996 and 1998.  Their best finish ever as a program was in 1976 when then finished as Runner Up.

The last time Orrville's football, basketball & baseball teams all made regionals in the same year was the 1995-96 school year. The football team went to the state semifinals, the basketball team won state and the baseball team made the regional semis.

Sort of hard to believe this team is two wins away from a trip to the final four.  Keep it up Riders.  Congrats to Coach Marshall and his team on putting Red Rider baseball back on the map.