By Jon Akre

605 Sports

“Fortunately I’m very familiar with quite a few of the players on the Lesterville team, having coached them in Legion baseball at some point in their careers,” said Krier. “They’re a very aggressive team and they like to swing the bat, so just have to make sure you put the ball around the zone and give your defense a chance to make some plays, and that’s what we did here two games in a row.”

Krier tossed just two strikeouts but with the help of the defense behind him, was efficient in his seven-inning outing, throwing 56 strikes in 67 pitches.

“When you can trust your teammates to make plays for you, it makes pitching that much easier,” said Krier. “I just have to worry about making them make contact. Even if we get a hit mixed in there or a base runner mixed in there, we have more opportunities to make plays and our guys have done that for us.”

With Krier and the defense pitching a shutout, the offense took care of the rest.

Unlike last season’s championship, the Canova offense got after Wagner early in the second inning, striking for three runs on a single and back-to-back walks.

“I think we were just trying to see a lot of pitches up there today,” said Miller. “We had quite a few walks where they were really deep in counts and fighting off close pitches, and that’s what you need to do when you face a good pitcher like that. He’s going to be tough to get hits off of.”

Three innings later, the Cang struck for two more innings before Wagner exited the game, bringing in Dawson Bietz for relief.

“It’s always good to get to the bullpen, when you can get a really quality starter out of the game like that, it’s a confidence builder in the dugout,” said Miller.

In Bietz’s second batter of his relief outing, Miller drove a three-run homer over the right field fence to take a commanding eight-run lead.

“He got ahead of me on the first pitch, and I knew he might not come back to that fastball,” said Miller of his home run at-bat. “So I was looking for something offspeed, something a little bit up in the zone, and I was able to get that pitch.”

Canova was able to plate three more runs in the sixth and seventh to close-out the mercy rule victory.

Miller drove in five runs on three hits and two walks, including a double and homer. Cole Gassman tallied two hits, a walk, and two RBIs. Riley Genzlinger and Tim Gassman each drove in a run on two hits, while Derek Miller drove in a run on a double in the win.

Lesterville’s Wagner allowed seven runs on eight hits and five walks in 4.1 innings.

Ethan Wishon and Garret Damico each tallied two hits in the loss.

Canova moves on to the second round of the State B amateur baseball tournament, and it will face the Northville vs. Kimball/White Lake winner on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.