Brant Mast scores a run while Jay County pitcher Wyatt Geesaman waits for the throw from the backstop during Bellmont Regional play Saturday. (Photos by James Costello)

DECATUR — There are bound to be some what-ifs in any loss. For NorthWood’s baseball team, among other could-have-beens, Saturday’s season-ending loss will likely have the Panthers asking themselves at least two questions for awhile: How would Jay County have reacted had NorthWood scored a couple more early, and what might have happened if ace Alec Holcomb had taken the mound?

Unfortunately, those questions will remain only hypotheticals. The Panthers plated just two runs against wild Patriots starter Wyatt Geesaman over the first two frames, leaving three on and and missing a key scoring opportunity over those two innings. Jay County hung around, and once they started hitting NorthWood starter Matt Dutkowski, they never stopped, shelling a staff of three relievers while Holcomb watched from left field in a come-from-behind, 10-5 win in the late semifinal at the Bellmont Regional.

The Patriots advanced to play Yorktown, a 12-2 winner over Concordia in a five-inning tournament-opener, in the championship Saturday night.

“We’ve had a couple games where we were close and we hang around, and usually the second time around we hit people. I was a little surprised that we got that many just because I know that they’re a quality ball club. But I’ve seen us do that,” said Jay County coach Lea Selvey.

The Panthers led by a 3-1 margin with the top of the order coming around for a third time against Dutkowski in the top of the sixth, and they had no reason to believe the momentum would swing so wildly in the Patriots’ direction. After all, Dutkowski had surrendered just one hit while walking none over the previous five frames, Jay County’s only score coming on a pair of errors in the second.

Matt Dutkowski works for NorthWood early Saturday.

But Patriots lead-off Cole Stigleman crushed a solo shot to left on a one-out, two-strike offering to cut NorthWood’s lead to a single run and suddenly energizing the Jay County dugout. Ryan Schlechty legged out an infield single on a hopper to short and quickly advanced all the way to third when Dutkowski’s pick-off throw to first fell short and got past Cooper Davis. Max Mosier’s grounder to short took a bad hop, allowing Schlechty to score the tying run, and Moser scored the go-ahead on Michael Schlechty’s two-out fly to center, chasing Dutkowski. Jason Cripe got out of the inning inducing a flyout to center by Payton Heniser, but NorthWood still trailed 4-3 going into the bottom half of the inning. Kyler Hauptli was hit by a pitch and Brock Miller moved him to second with a sacrifice bunt, but he was ultimately left stranded there when Holcomb fouled out and Jaden Miller stuck out.

“I think they were just putting them in spots we weren’t, and because we weren’t necessarily making the plays defensively, that extends the inning, the pitch count, the pressure,” explained NorthWood coach A.J. Risedorph. “(Dutkowski) battled. He was able to battle through some of those tough plays.

“You look at the game as a whole, a lot of it comes down to taking advantage of mistakes. They did a phenomenal job of taking advantage of ours. Defensively, making plays behind our guys, that just seems to get the snowball rolling, and we’ve got to be able to stop it.”

“He hits one out, and all of a sudden we’ve got a little bit of life in us,” said Selvey of Stigleman’s homer. “And sometimes the pitcher, sometimes they’re like ‘Oh, man.’ But it did give us an uplift, and once we got going, we’re a contagious team. When we hit, we hit.”

No kidding.

The Jay County lineup stayed hot in the seventh with three straight singles against Cripe. Freshman Nate Newcomer took over with two on and none out, and two more singles from the top of the order pushed the Patriots to a 6-3 advantage and chased Newcomer. Preston King took the mound with the bases loaded and still none out, and it looked like NorthWood was buying time with Holcomb doing a sort of modified warm-up in the outfield. Hauptli gunned down Heniser trying to score on a grounder to third, but Stigleman scored on a double steal on the next at-bat despite the fact that NorthWood was anticipating the play and quickly relayed the throw from second back to home plate. Ethan Myers poked a ball through the gap at short to score two more and balloon Jay County’s lead to 9-3, and Noah Arbuckle plated Myers putting a ball in play to short to push the Patriots out to an all-but-insurmountable seven-run lead before King was finally able to wriggle out of the inning.

Afterwards, Risedorph was left wondering what might have been had he put Holcomb on the mound to start the seventh.

“It sucks walking away from the game not throwing your number one, number two. It’s always a coin flip between those guys (Dutkowski and Holcomb) when they’re on,” he said.

“I just didn’t feel comfortable bringing him in cold. That’s why I threw him the baseball there to try to get loose. But that’s a major coaching error on me. Just from the standpoint when we got out of the sixth inning, Cripe was able to get that one out, and we were at the back of our order. Lead-off guy gets on, we sac over, and next guy up is Holcomb. Ideally, I think in that situation if I did it over again… I’d pinch hit for him, let him get in the bullpen and get going in case we need to use him. I didn’t do that today, and I’m going to have to live with that one.”

NorthWood did push two across in its last chance in the seventh as Sawyer Warren coaxed a lead-off walk, and Brant Mast hit a ball into shallow center that Myers inexplicably dove for instead of playing off the hop, allowing Warren to score and Mast to take second. Dutkowski drew another walk from Arbuckle before Selvey replaced him with Ryan Schlechty, and both Mast and Dutkowski advanced a base on wild pitches before Bear scored Mast with a sac fly to centerfield. Hunter Warren drew a third walk, but Dutkowski was gunned down trying to reach third and Hauptli hit into a fielder’s choice at short to end the game.

NorthWood celebrates Sawyer Warren’s home run in the fifth inning.

The Panthers jumped on top taking advantage of some wildness from Geesaman in the first, as Mast was hit by a pitch, took second and third on wild pitches, and scored on another wild pitch to Hunter Warren. Bear was walked in the meantime and advanced to third on two of those wild pitches, but he hesitated on another wild offering to Hauptli and was caught sliding into home plate for the inning’s final out, leaving Warren on first. After giving the run back on a pair of infield errors in the top of the second, NorthWood got back on top when Hauptli drew another lead-off walk, Davis sac bunted him over, Holcomb walked, and Hauptli scored on a passed ball at the plate. Sawyer Warren drew a two-out walk, but Mast grounded out to short to leave two more stranded. The score stayed 2-1 until Sawyer Warren’s homer straight out to center against Arbuckle in the fifth.

Arbuckle collected the win, giving up three runs off three hits and three walks relieving Geesaman in the third. Dutkowski was the hard-luck loser, giving up just one earned run on four hits with six strikeouts and no walks through 5 2/3 innings.

While Jay County (20-5) advanced to play Yorktown in the finals of the Bellmont tourney, NorthWood closed another strong campaign at 22-5. In their first year under Risedorph’s guidance, the Panthers finished the regular season strong to claim a share of the Northern Lakes Conference championship, won their sixth straight sectional title and teamed up with the Jason Motte Foundation to raise money to fight cancer after the Warren brothers’ sister-in-law lost her life to lung cancer in February. The program must now bid farewell to a very strong senior class that included the Warrens, Mast, Bear, and King as well as Brock Miller, Cam Hershberger and Landen Gessinger.

“There are some outstanding memories,” said Risedorph.

“I think the maturity that our guys have shown throughout — when we hit the tough stretch in the middle of our conference season, it could’ve gone another way, but we were able to rally behind each other and grow together and compete for a conference championship and win a share of it. I think just that growth throughout the course of the year. When we walk away from this, no one is going to remember a lot of these plays. They’re always going to remember the values that our kids brought with them to the field every day, the work ethic and what our mission was this year. We wanted to play for each other, play for something bigger than baseball, and I think we accomplished that this year.”

A.J. Risedorph talks with his players following Saturday’s season-ending defeat.