DWIGHT — Armstrong-Potomac baseball coach Tom Wolken knew runs would be tough to come by during a Class 1A sectional championship tilt against Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley in Dwight.
But an early 3-0 deficit didn’t faze the Trojans, who rallied for four runs in the fifth inning to claim a 4-3 victory on Saturday afternoon and their first sectional plaque since 2003.
“It came down to just gritty baseball,” Armstrong-Potomac coach Tom Wolken said. “Who was going to make a big play at the end, and that’s what it took. We had a big inning and that’s what we needed.”
Armstrong-Potomac (22-3) has kept a simple mantra throughout its most successful season in more than two decades.
‘Don’t be bad’ has been Wolken’s message to a fundamentally sound team.
And the Trojans didn’t commit an error behind a stellar pitching effort from Kentucky commit Traxton Roberts, who struck out 13 batters in 5 ⅔ innings of work on the mound.
“He’s a gamer,” Wolken said. “I mean, he’s going to Kentucky for a reason, man. He’s a hell of an arm. He does what he does best.”
It was GCMS (11-21) that struck first against Trojans starter Ryan Edwards. Mitchell Heinz hit a single in the top of the first inning to plate Trent Wetherell, then Dayne White and Zeb Greer came across the plate an inning later off the bat of Graydon Leonard.
Leonard, for his part, struck out 12 batters in five innings of pitching work for the Falcons.
“We started off a little sluggish, but we got it going and that’s what you like to see,” Wolken said.
Luke Townsend — the ninth batter in Armstrong-Potomac’s order — sparked the Trojans by leading off the bottom of the fifth inning, preceding a walk from Ryan Edwards and Carter Freeman.
Roberts then tied the game with a bases-clearing double, then scored on a wild pitch with Beckett Moran at the plate.
“It’s huge when you get your nine hole on and bring your top up and Ryan Edwards worked a walk and Carter Freeman laid down a perfect bunt that the third baseman struggled to field a little bit,” Wolken said. “Got the based loaded and got the big horse up to bat and he executed what he needed to do.”
Roberts struck out four of the next six batters he faced to set the Trojans up with a super-sectional clash against Tremont at 6 p.m. Monday at Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington.
“It’s huge for the program,” Wolken said.
“I think sometimes the VVC gets forgotten about — Armstrong-Potomac gets forgotten about, but we’ve got athletes going on over there on the west side of Vermillion County. And we want to show it off to everybody.”
Joey Wright is a reporter covering prep and college sports for The News-Gazette and WDWS/WHMS/WKIO radio.
