Chris Goyette had a simple, yet insightful, instruction for his team.
“Get on base. A walk’s a double or a triple,” the Medina baseball coach said while standing in the dugout during Saturday’s Section VI Class B final with Southwestern.
Confused?
The way the Mustangs run, getting to first is as good as an extra-base hit. If they reach base, there’s a good chance they’ll be on the move.
“We haven’t had team speed like this, up and down the lineup, in a long time,” Goyette said. “We’ve always had really good hitters, but we didn’t have speed like this.”
In 22 games this season, Medina (21-1) has swiped a total of 103 bags — nearly five per game, on average. The Mustangs had eight in their 4-0 championship win over Southwestern.
Simply put, their speed is the reason they’re still playing. It’s won them three games in the playoffs, where runs are at a premium. It has them hopeful they can avenge their only loss when they face Section V champion Wellsville (16-3) on Wednesday (6 p.m.) in a subregional at Colburn Park in Newark.
Medina has been limited to four, two and five postseason hits. But it hasn’t mattered.
“Instead of relying on getting two or three hits in a row, all it takes is a couple stolen bases and a ground ball or a fly ball or a hit to score a run,” said Goyette, whose Mustangs won their fifth sectional title in six seasons.
Sophomore Aiden Papaj leads the team in not only hitting (.406) but also stolen bases with 26.
“He’s an incredibly gifted baserunner, and very instinctive, which is something that’s not taught,” Goyette said.
Papaj had two critical runs for Medina in a pair of walk-off triumphs to open the playoffs. In a 3-2 win over Royalton-Hartland in the quarterfinals, he stole second and third in the fifth inning before scoring the game-tying run on a hit by Preston Woodworth. In a 2-1 victory against Fredonia in the semifinals, Papaj came home from third for the winning run in the ninth when Carter Woodworth hit a chopper between short and third against a pulled-in infield.
“Most kids don’t make that read when they’re at third base like Aiden was and aren’t reading that ball and being as aggressive as he was to score,” Goyette said.
But it’s not just Papaj. Thirteen different Mustangs have stolen bases this season, including Vinny Gray with 19, Kolton Fletcher with 15, and Carter Woodworth, Tyler Kroening and Preston Woodworth with eight apiece.
Goyette called Fletcher the team’s “pinch runner extraordinaire.” The junior stole second and third against Fredonia before scoring the tying run in the bottom of the seventh.
“Especially in today’s high school game, (pitchers) holding runners and catch play from the catchers is a little bit weak,” Goyette said, “so if you get kids that are aggressive and quick and get good reads, you can really expose teams and get basically extra bases for free.”
Medina didn’t have many opportunities to steal in the first meeting with Wellsville, which the Lions won 4-1 on May 10 on the Mustangs’ home turf. Senior Aiden Cowburn pitched a two-hitter, and Medina swiped only one bag. Lucas Grimes allowed only five hits for the Mustangs, who were hurt by two errors.
Wednesday’s game, which was moved due to rain in Thursday’s forecast, is also a rematch of last year’s Far West Regional won by the Mustangs 8-3. A seven-run sixth inning broke a 1-1 tie in that one. Medina’s Brody Fry and Wellsville’s Ty Vogel pitched, and the seniors could square off again this year.
Fry (9-0, 0.12 ERA) took a perfect game into the seventh inning of Saturday’s Section VI title game and settled for a one-hitter with 13 strikeouts. Cowburn pitched Wellsville to a 4-3 win over Le Roy on Sunday in the Section V finals.
The Mustangs also have Preston Woodworth (9-0, 0.38 ERA) as an option to take the mound. He allowed three hits in a nine-inning complete game in the semifinals, striking out 13.
The subregional winner will advance to Saturday’s regional against Section IV champion Oneonta.
“Teams are making it this far because of their pitching, not because of their hitting,” Goyette said. “Every game, you’re going to be facing a good pitcher, you’re not going to score a lot of runs unless that pitcher just has a really bad day. Our goal is to score four or five runs, and we trust our pitching and our defense enough to limit and not allow four or five runs.”