Jasper All Stars’ historic run comes to an end
by Keith Hedinger
The Jasper Babe Ruth 14 Year Old All Stars World Series run came to an end Thursday night with a 5 – 12 loss to Oregon at Moses Lake, Washington.
Jasper, the visiting team as a result of their higher seed, jumped out to a 3 – 0 lead in top of the first when Reece Kleinhelter and Tanner Egbert both reached base on errors. Andrew Schmitt then walked to load the bases. A sacrifice by Jared Sermersheim brought Kleinhelter home, and for the second straight game in the first inning, Adam Hedinger ripped a bases-clearing, 2 RBI base hit.
Oregon, however responded with four runs of their own in the bottom of the first on three hits and two Jasper errors.
Jasper scored two more runs in the top of the second to go up 5-4 when Mason Thewes singled, Cam Heeke walked, Evan Aders reached base on an error to load the bases again. Kleinhelter and Egbert then hit sacrifice fly balls to right field to score Thewes and Heeke.
Oregon answered once again with a run in the bottom of the second inning to tie the game at 5-5.
Lightning then halted the game for a half hour. When gameplay resumed Jasper never scored again while Oregon scored in every inning thereafter for the 12-5 win.
Oregon out hit Jasper 14-7 and committed five errors to Jasper’s four. Hedinger and Thewes each had two base hits for Jasper, and Heeke doubled.
Reece Kleinhelter started for Jasper on the mound and pitched two complete innings. Connor O’Brien came in relief and pitched 1 2/3 innings. Ethan Schroeder relieved O’Brien to get the last out in the in the 4th and then completed the last two innings of the game. O’Brien took the loss.
Oregon now advances to the final four on Friday to play New York.
Babe Ruth World Series scores, statistics and results can be found at www.moseslakeworldseries.com.
