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Friday, June 7, 2013
SPORTS
The Fayette County Record
With La Grange fans going nuts behind him, Kolby Kolek crosses home plate just ahead of the throw to conclude an inside-the-park grand slam that put the Leps up 5-1 in Wednesday’s game. Photo by Jeff Wick
Leps Roar Into State Title Game
La Grange Downs Silsbee 8-3 to Set Up Battle Against Defending Champs By JEFF WICK
The Fayette County Record
AUSTIN – With a little help from some pickle juice and what might have been the first insidethe-park grand slam in state baseball tournament history, the La Grange Leps are one win away from a state title. Thanks to a complete game gem by Trey Supak, that grand slam by Kolby Kolek and another homer by Chris Raborn, La Grange beat Silsbee 8-3 Wednesday at UT’s Disch-Falk field to vault the Leps into Thursday night’s 6:30 p.m. Class 3A title game against defending champ Texarkana Pleasant Grove (28-13). “They say this is a Cinderella team, but this is just a bunch of guys who like to play baseball,” said La Grange head coach Brad Harbers, who is retiring from coaching one way or another after Thursday’s game. “We’ve shown throughout the course of the season, throughout the course of the playoffs, that when the situation arises somebody is going to step up.” Wednesday it wasn’t just somebody that stepped up for the Leps – it was everybody. Every member of the starting lineup reached base for La Grange (25-9), which never trailed in this one. Supak pitched a complete game four-hitter with eight strikeouts as he dominated a Silsbee team that had six players in their lineup hitting over .300. And Supak did it all just four days after a blister on his pitching hand forced him off the mound late in the regional final win over Sinton. But Supak said the blister didn’t bother him a bit Wednesday. The secret treatment? Pickle juice. “We asked everyone around what the best solution was for healing blisters and they said soak it in pickle juice,” Supak said. “So four or five times a day we’d get the pickle juice out and I’d sit there and watch TV with my hand in pickle juice. It worked.” “Anybody who has a blister, use pickle juice,” laughed Harbers. And while Supak was mow-
Somewhere under this pile of well-wishers is Kolby Kolek after he hit his inside-the-park grand slam Wednesday.
ing the Tigers down, his teammates were doing their part to give him a big lead. La Grange drew first blood in the top of the first when Dustin Drab hustled his way onto base after a third strike got away from the catcher. Drab stole
second, advanced to third on a throwing error and then sprinted home when teammate Logan Vinklarek singled and intentionally got into a run-down between first and second. Silsbee (32-9) got that run back in their half of the inning
La Grange’s Trey Supak threw a complete game four-hitter with eight strikeouts Wednesday. Photo by Tom Wood
fueled by three Supak walks in that frame. But Supak settled down after that, and then the Lep bats gave him even more room to relax. In the third inning the Leps loaded the bases on a single by Drab and walks to Supak and
Photo by Tom Wood
Vinklarek from Silsbee starter Tyler Powell (who had only lost once all year before Wednesday). Then, with two outs, Kolek strode to the plate and launched a screamer to centerfield. The Silsbee outfielder took a bad angle to the ball. It soared
Lep shortstop Tanner Fritsch does his best to distract this Silsbee baserunner at second. Photo by Jeff Wick
over his head and he fell down as he raced to corral it. Meanwhile, Kolek was chugging around the bases as the crowd was going wild. He made it home just before the throw to the plate. It was the two most exciting plays in baseball, the inside-thepark home run and the grand slam, combined into one unforgettable state tournament moment for Leps fans. “Coach said it’s never been done here before,” Kolek said. “I knew I had hit it hard, but I thought he was going to catch it. Then I heard the crowd cheering, and I knew I really needed to turn on the jets. “By the time I got around second I was thinking, ‘This is a long run,’ but then I saw Coach Harbers and he was still waving me on. I put my head down and tried to finish. By the time I got to home plate I was tired.” That four-run cushion made all the difference, Supak said. “It’s a huge weight off your shoulders when you have that run support and you know you can make a few mistakes,” Supak said. Silsbee trimmed the La Grange lead to 5-3 in the bottom of the fourth, aided by a La Grange error – one of three the Leps made Wednesday. But La Grange upped their lead back to five runs with a three-run sixth inning. Raborn started that frame with a solo homer that landed in the bullpen beyond the left field wall. It was his second homer of the postseason for a player that didn’t get a hit of any sort during the regular season. “He left that pitch up in the zone a little bit. I was able to turn on it and get it up in the wind a little bit, and it just went,” said Raborn. “It’s quite exciting. To be able to give us a boost like that to finish out the game was really great.” La Grange got two more in that frame when freshman second baseman Austin Colon walked and then came home on a Tanner Fritsch triple. Then Fritsch came home on a single by Drab. Supak retired the Tigers over See Leps, next page
The Fayette County Record, Friday, June 7, 2013
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Leps Beat Silsbee 8-3 Continued from previous page the final two innings without trouble and suddenly the Leps were in the title game, trying to win the program’s fourth state baseball title. The team standing in their way is Pleasant Grove, which is making its sixth consecutive state tournament appearance. The Hawks won it all in 2010 and 2012. Pleasant Grove beat Lubbock Cooper 7-3 in their state semifinal Wednesday to get to Thursday’s title game against the Leps. But unlike La Grange, the Hawks needed three different pitchers to get past Cooper. “Tomorrow, it’s going to be a big battle. They (Pleasant Grove) are the defending state champs. They are going to know how to handle the pressure, but we’re going to handle the pressure well, and it should be a great ballgame.” Win or lose, a great ballgame to end a great season for the Leps. “In years past, we’ve had guys like Homer Bailey (who helped lead the Leps to state baseball titles in 2001 and 2004),” Kolek said. “We don’t have anybody like that, but we’ve proved that a group of guys can come together as a team and reach their goal.”
Chris Raborn follows through on his home run swing in the sixth inning of Wednesday’s game. Photo by Tom Wood
Caitlin Zarr, a La Grange High School grad, earned several awards this season with the Texas Lutheran University Tennis Team.
Zarr Has Great Sophomore Year on TLU Tennis Team
6/5/13 – 3A State Semifinal Baseball
La Grange 8, Silsbee 3
La Grange 104 003 0 – 8 9 3 Silsbee 100 200 0 – 3 4 1 Winning pitcher: Trey Supak (complete game four-hitter with 3 runs, 8 Ks, 3 BBs, 115 pitches) Losing pitcher: Tyler Powell (5.1 IP, 5 hits, 7 runs, 5 BBs, 5 Ks) LG highlights: Kolby Kolek 2-for-4, insidethe-park grand slam, 4 RBIs; Chris Raborn solo homer, SAC; Tanner Fritsch 3B, 1 run, 1 RBI; Dustin Drab 2-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI, 2 SBs; Logan Vinklarek 1 hit, 1 run, 1 BB; Ty Beseda 1 run; Supak BB; Landon Gerik 2 BBs; Austin Colon 1 hit, 1 run, 1 BB; Dalton Burton 1 hit.
La Grange catcher Landon Gerik leaps into the arms of outfielder Kolby Kolek after Kolek made the final catch of the game Wednesday. Photo by Jeff Wick La Grange’s Dustin Drab dives towards first base, reaching successfully after he struck out in the first inning, but the ball got away from the catcher Wednesday. Drab would go on to steal second and eventually score La Grange’s first run of the day. Photo by Jeff Wick
Community League Baseball Update Last week’s scores: Serbin 17, Thorndale 4 Fayetteville 8, Bernardo 7 Fayetteville scored 6 runs in bottom of ninth inning to win this game. Josh Vitek hit a single with the bases loaded, 2 outs, to drive in the tying and winning runs. La Grange @ New Ulm (rainout) Jackson County @ Plum (rainout)
League Standings: La Grange Jackson County Winchester Fayetteville New Ulm Bernardo Serbin Flatonia
5-0 4-1 4-3 4-3 3-3 3-4 3-4 3-4
Thorndale Plum
2-5 1-5
This Sunday’s Games (June 9) La Grange at Serbin 3:00PM Fayetteville at Winchester 3:00PM Thorndale at Bernardo 3:00PM JC at New Ulm 3:00PM
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Caitlin Zarr has just completed her sophomore year at Texas Lutheran University and continues her dominance for the Bulldogs tennis team. Zarr, a La Grange High School graduate, was the captian of the Women’s tennis team and played No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles. Her singles record for the spring was 11-8 and her doubles record was 11-7. As a team, TLU placed second in the American Southwest
Conference with a 4-1 record. Zarr earned several individual awards this season: • ASC All-West Division First Team No. 2 Singles • ASC All-West Division Second team No. 1 Doubles • ASC Academic All-Conference • ASC Distinguished Scholar Athlete (Awarded to the player with the highest GPA on each sports team) • Preston Reeves Student
Athlete Award (Awarded to the player with the highest GPA on the women’s tennis team. This was Zarr’s second consecutive year to receive this award) • Bill Lehman Leadership Award (As described by the coach: “Intended to be an all-around award for the team member who displays leadership, good sportsmanship, are good team players and are good role models.”