LOUISVILLE — Lake Center Christian ace Dylan Maninga retired the first seven Hillsdale batters he faced Thursday in their Division IV regional semifinal, then faced the minimum 12 batters over the final four innings.
In between that dominance, though, the Falcons figured out a way to set up their third trip to the Elite Eight in the last five seasons with a 2-1 triumph at Louisville High School’s Andy Aljancic Field.
Hillsdale (18-11) scored its only runs in the third inning against Maninga and the No. 5-ranked Tigers (26-2). Meanwhile, senior pitcher Jack Fickes controlled plenty of potential chaos on the mound for the Falcons.
The victory took a little over 80 minutes and vaulted Hillsdale into a regional title game at 5 p.m. Friday back at LHS. The Falcons will play Warren JFK, which edged No. 6-ranked Tiffin Calvert 2-1 in 10 innings.
“In my four years, this is probably the most fun game I’ve ever been a part of,” said Fickes, who scattered six hits and stranded seven LCC runners on base in his 90-pitch complete game. “We just went out there and played our baseball.
“(In the bottom of the seventh inning), the adrenaline was rushing and my arm felt like it was on fire, but I went out there and it was a lot of fun today.”
The Tigers looked to be the favorite on paper. Just like the Falcons, they had played in three straight district championship games, but they entered Thursday having outscored their opponents 244-38 on the season.
They had five four-year varsity players, were batting .350 as a team and had a staggering 0.98 team ERA. All that was despite playing a schedule that saw them win twice against Warren JFK, beat state-ranked, Division II regional finalist West Branch and knock off Dalton for a district crown, 12-7.
But Fickes and the Falcons found a way through.
“Some of the guys were nervous coming in,” Hillsdale coach Jason Snow said. “I think they thought, ‘Oh, this team’s 26-1.’ But I said, ‘Guys, if we do what we do, we’ll be fine.’
“They’re a very good team and they’ve got solid pitching. We knew we were going to have to scrape out runs.”
Hillsdale did all it needed to do on offense against Maninga in the top of the third.
After a strikeout to lead off the inning — one of seven Ks for the Lake Center right-hander — Gavin Casdorph shot a single through the right side of the infield for the game’s first hit.
Byron Bickel then executed a bunt to the left side of home plate that turned into a single and Fickes was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Brock Bower followed with an RBI groundout to the right side to plate Casdorph, then Owen Hoffman hit a 65-foot popup that landed to the left of the mound for an infield single that scored Bickel.
In a span of five batters and just nine pitches, Hillsdale had a 2-0 lead.
The only Falcon to reach base the rest of the way was catcher Braylen Jarvis, who was immediately picked off first base after a sharp single with two outs in the sixth.
“Any way we can get them,” Snow said of the two runs. “(The hits) weren’t rockets, but I was proud of our guys. There were a lot of pressure situations and they handled it well.”
Maninga entered the game 7-0 with a 0.59 ERA over 47.2 innings pitched. He had 60 strikeouts and just four walks allowed all season while featuring a fastball, curveball and changeup.
On Thursday, he never threw more than 16 pitches in an inning and fell into a hitter’s count just once, collecting 54 strikes on 73 pitches for the game.
“Dylan pitched a great game,” 11th-year LCC coach Shane Byler said of his senior, who will play golf at Malone University. “Quite honestly, (the two-run inning) was just baseball. Sometimes stuff like that happens.
“I’d say he was borderline dominant out there. … It’s disappointing to think that we won’t see him out on the mound for us ever again.”
Fickes was no slouch entering Thursday himself. The Thiel College baseball commit carried a 5-3 record and a 3.25 ERA with 43 strikeouts over 47.1 innings.
But he had to wriggle out of tension all afternoon against the Tigers, who stranded runners in five straight innings.
In the fourth, fifth and sixth, Lake Center got two runners on base with two outs, but Fickes induced a popout and two groundouts to end the threats.
“In those situations, I look at him and say, ‘Hey, you’re our guy for a reason — get us out of this,’ ” Jarvis said.
“When he’s got his head in the right place he’s hard to hit. He threw a gem.”
The only run Lake Center could muster came in the bottom of the fifth.
With two outs, leadoff hitter Grant Coblentz — a freshman with a .471 batting average — reached on an infield single. That was followed by another infield single from Matt Warder.
Then with senior Portage Trail Conference Player of the Year Harrison Coblentz at the plate, Grant Coblentz broke for third on a wild pitch. Jarvis tried to make an off-balance throw and the ball got past Hoffman at third, allowing Coblentz to trot home.
The Tigers threatened again in the sixth with back-to-back, two-out singles from Caleb Shelly (2-for-3) and Braidon Miller, but HHS freshman shortstop Kael Lewis narrowly forced out Shelly at third on a fielder’s choice to end the inning.
Fickes went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the seventh, finishing with five strikeouts and getting a huge day at second base from Bower, a sophomore who assisted on eight of Hillsdale’s 21 outs.
“If our guys play defense, we’re going to get outs, and that’s just what we stressed all year,” Snow said.
“We had to work through a lot of stressful situations, but I do think those guys had the confidence of knowing, ‘Hey, we’ve been to the regional before and we can do this.’ ”
Including Thursday, the Tigers held their opponents to two or fewer runs in 23 of their 28 games this season. Their only other loss came to No. 1-ranked defending state champ Hiland in a 4-0 outcome.
The program, which began in 2005 and won district titles in 2009, 2023 and 2024, will lose seven seniors. Byler said he felt Hillsdale mirrored this year’s Lake Center squad in a lot of ways.
“In my head, there were a few times I thought, ‘Man, this team is very similar to us in the way that they play the game,’ ” he said. “They just do it the right way.”
The Falcons now get Warren JFK (19-8), which outlasted Calvert in Thursday’s second game at Louisville.
Hillsdale beat JFK in the regional semifinals in 2022, 4-3. The Eagles lost a pair of games to Lake Center in early May, 13-0 and 2-1, and battled Division II regional finalist West Branch in a 4-1 defeat on Tuesday.
“We come into every game expecting to win,” Jarvis said. “We’ve had some ups and downs this year … but coming into this, we had high expectations.”
“Hopefully we come out (Friday) and put the same kind of effort in and see if we can get another one,” Snow added.
Note: The Falcons were one of two Wayne County Athletic League teams to advance to the Elite 8 on Thursday, as Division III Waynedale knocked off South Range, 4-1, and will play Perry on Friday in a bid for their third straight regional crown.
Had Perry not topped Norwayne, 9-8, it would have been an all-WCAL regional championship game.