Butler Hands Alder First Loss of Season

DEFIANCE - Garret Bauer had done this before.

Five times this season, to be exact - stood on a mound for Jonathan Alder and watched his team walk off with a win. The Ashland University commit had been part of something rare this spring, something that doesn't last forever in high school baseball but feels like it might when you're living inside it. The Pioneers came into Saturday undefeated, battle tested and ranked at the top of Division IV in Ohio.

Then they ran into Jack Egbert and the Aviators.

Egbert went 3-for-3 against one of the top arms in the state - a double, two singles, four total bases - and when the afternoon was over, Butler had its shutout and Jonathan Alder had its first loss.

Final: 1-0. Aviators head coach Trent Dues didn't need a long sentence to sum it up.

"That was a really nice victory for the Aviators today."

The only run scored the way scratched-out runs do in games like this - quietly, almost sideways. Egbert singled hard to center, stole second, moved to third on a Richardson groundout. Two outs. Bauer still on the mound, still dealing. Then Carson Heis pushed a bunt toward first base and gave himself up for the cause. Egbert scored standing.

That was it. That was the whole game. At least from an offensive standpoint.

"We executed baserunning, bunts, defensively - and some solid pitching from Davis and Tate to keep a very good team off the scoreboard," Dues said.

Bauer struck out six and was as good as his reputation most of the afternoon. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth with two strikeouts and kept Butler from ever feeling comfortable. But Egbert wouldn't let him off the hook either. Every time the Pioneers needed a clean inning, number three was standing in the way of it.

Tate Richardson set the tone on the mound first, working four innings of two-hit, zero-run baseball - 45 pitches, 32 strikes, not a single free pass - before handing a lead that felt both fragile and enormous to Davis Ketterer. Ketterer threw three more innings, gave up four hits, and never yielded an inch. Between them, Butler's pitchers issued no walks against a team accustomed to getting whatever it wanted.

The defense was sharp in the way defenses must be in one-run games. Paxton Dwenger set the tone before the game had a heartbeat, charging a ball in the first inning at full speed and making the throw to first for the final out of a clean frame. In the fourth, with Bauer at the plate trying to help his own cause, he lashed a sharp grounder up the middle. Koby Dues ranged hard to his left, got down for a sliding stop, and fired to Heis at first. Out. Run saved before it existed.

"Our infield - Paxton Dwenger, Koby Dues, Jayden Rivas, Carson Heis - did a fine job," Dues said. "And Jackson Schilling did a great job behind the plate."

When the rain came in the sixth it soaked the field, stalled the game, and changed absolutely nothing.

Butler is 18-3. Jonathan Alder is 21-1. Somewhere in that math is a story about how good this Ohio high school baseball season has been - two programs at the top of their respective divisions, meeting on a sun and then rain-soaked Saturday in May, playing the kind of game people remember come June.

"Jack Egbert had a big day at the plate," Dues added - an understatement that fit the afternoon perfectly.

Three hits. One run. Back in the win column.