Schumacher dealt, Ryle rallied, and just enough of a Camels cushion held up.
Behind 12 strikeouts from their ace, Campbell County built a commanding lead, then survived a late seventh inning scare to escape Ryle with a 6-5 win Monday at Pat Roesel Field in Union.
The Camels’ senior pitcher and Marshall commit, Tyler Schumacher, was dominant through the first six innings. He allowed seven hits but no runs, issued zero walks and struck out 12.
“I felt pretty good early on,” he said. “I felt like the slider was getting it done. Defense did a great job. They really stopped the ball and got me outs when I needed them.”
But as Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra once famously said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
It nearly wasn’t.
After being held scoreless through six innings despite seven hits, Ryle made the final three outs anything but routine.
The Raiders collected four hits and scored all five of their runs in the seventh, aided by Campbell’s only two errors of the night.
Brady Irwin sparked the rally with a two-run blast over the right-field fence. After the Camels recorded a second out, an error brought in two more runs. On the next at-bat, Carson Cocco doubled to left, scoring Kenton Caldwell and trimming the deficit to one.
Campbell County finally exhaled on the next play.
Micah Price made a catch near the left-field fence to end the game.
Photo sequence of the catch provided by Charles Bolton
“I was a little nervous at the end, but that ended up being a great catch in left field,” Schumacher said.
With Schumacher nearing his pitch limit at 96, head coach Scott Schweitzer turned to Gavin Richardson to close things out.
“You get to that point of the pitch count, and it’s early in the season,” Schweitzer said. “Quite honestly, in a non-district, non-region game, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to stretch him to his limit. You’ve got to take care of arms like that, especially when he’s that good.”
At Ryle, facing pitchers of Schumacher’s caliber is nothing new.
The Raiders’ early-season schedule has been built around matchups like this and by the end of the night, despite the loss, they showed progress.
“We talked early in the season about playing teams like Moeller and Trinity,” Ryle head coach Joe Aylor said. “We know we’re going to see good pitching. You’ve got to try to knock them out and see what happens after that. I thought we did a really good job of that, getting him up to 96 pitches in six innings. We made it a game from there, so I think the game plan worked well.”
Through the first six innings, everything leaned Campbell County’s way offensively as well.
Ryle went with Andres Martinez, a transfer from Florida, who made his first varsity start of the season.
“He’s been ineligible, but played some JV,” Aylor said. “He’s just now getting into our rotation. Obviously we’re getting ready for district seeding, so he’s working through that. Today was his first start, and then sophomore Drew Hornbach came in for his first varsity innings.”
After scoring once in the first, the Camels added four runs in the fourth, with three coming in one sequence. Camden Tiemeier scored on a wild pitch, Trip Mercurio delivered a two-run double, and later came around to score on an error.
The Camels added what proved to be a crucial insurance run in the sixth, when Jeb Kessinger singled to left to bring home Mercurio.
That run ultimately stood as the difference.
“I’m just happy we held on,” Schweitzer said. “We were six and five and we had lost games twice in extra innings and three by one run. We’ve lost in walk-off fashion several times.”
This time, Campbell County finished the job.
After a string of close losses earlier in the season, the Camels finally found themselves on the right side of one, improving to 7-5.
They head back home next for a 5 p.m. matchup Wednesday against Covington Catholic.
Ryle, now 10-7, will also be in action the same time and day, hosting Conner in a key district seeding game.
MORE PHOTOS: Provided by Charles Bolton
CAMELS 6, RAIDERS 5
CAMPBELL COUNTY — 100-401-0 — 6-8-2
RYLE — 000-000-5 — 5-11-1
RBI — (CC) Mercurio 2, Kessinger, Kramer (R) Irwin 2, Cocco
2B — (CC) Mercurio (R) Irwin, Parr
HR — (R) Irwin
WP — Schumacher. LP — Martinez.
Records: Campbell County 7-5, Ryle 10-7