Oak Park rallies for third place
O’Hara wins after controversial call.

Story ran on Sunday, June 03 2001

Oak Park’s Michael Younghanz was visibly upset in the late stages of yesterday’s 4A baseball third place game against Eureka.

He was struggling at the plate - striking out in his first two at bats - and his Northmen could not score after getting eight hits against Eureka starting pitcher Ben Neckemann through five innings.

But as the game grew longer and the pitcher grew weary, Oak Park took advantage and erased a three-run deficit by scoring three runs in the sixth and one in the bottom of the seventh for a 4-3 comeback victory over the Wildcats.

In both late innings Younghanz connected on leadoff doubles. It was only fitting that he was the one who slid into home plate for the game winning run, beating out the throw from Eureka right fielder Jon Pate following a sacrifice fly by Travis Craig.

"I was real nervous stepping up to bat in the sixth inning after striking out twice," said Younghanz, a sophomore third baseman. "I just got up there and tried to be confident and I didn’t want to swing at anything bad.

"In the seventh inning the pitcher threw a curveball out there and I just ripped it over to right field. I knew it was landing and it was exciting."

Defensive lapses nearly killed Oak Park (21-8) toward the end of the game with Eureka (16-12-1) scoring its two runs in the fifth off of two Northmen throwing errors.

Eureka’s Adam Grzyb scored from third in the sixth inning following a wild pitch by reliever Adam Clay.

Oak Park loaded the bases in the sixth and seventh and converted on their scoring chances.

A game winner was evident in the bottom of the seventh when the Northmen had the bases loaded with no outs.

"I went to the plate looking for an outside pitch to take to right field pretty deep," said Craig of his game- winning sacrifice fly. "Deep enough to get our guy in. That’s basically what I was looking for, and that’s what I got."

● O’Hara 6, Branson 4: In the 3A consolation game, O’Hara scored a seventh inning run to tie the game at two and then carried that momentum into the eighth to score four more runs.

Branson scored in the bottom of the eighth on a controversial no call. With the bases loaded Travis Langum hit a suicide bunt straight at O’Hara pitcher Pete Eskew, who clearly tagged out Langum before he reached first base.

But all three umpires were looking at home plate to see if there was going to be a play at home, and none of them saw Langum being tagged.

Langum reached first base and Branson’s Austin Herschend scored on the play to make it 6-3.

"I’ve never blown up after that and I was pretty frustrated," said Eskew, who had to be restrained by teammates and coaches while arguing the call.

"I really wanted to win bad. My teammates helped me come through that and get my composure back."