Grand entrance: Raiders embark on state title quest with Connoyer’s slam providing boost

QUINCY — Dead red is all Ryan Oden said.

It’s all Alex Connoyer needed to hear.

After Athens right-hander Davis Ishmael loaded the bases in the bottom of the first inning Tuesday by sandwiching a hit batter between two walks, the Quincy Notre Dame baseball coach told his junior shortstop to look for nothing but a fastball right down the middle.

“It was like, ‘All right, I’ll do that,’” Connoyer said. “Luckily enough, he gave me one and I was able to barrel it.”

Ishmael started Connoyer with a pitch outside the strike zone, but he came back with a “dead red” fastball that Connoyer smoked over the fence in left-center field for a grand slam that kickstarted the Raiders’ 13-3, five-inning victory in the Class 2A QND Regional semifinals at the Ferd.

It wasn’t one Connoyer knew was gone the moment it came off the bat.

“Not today,” he said. “Usually I would, but today in batting practice, the ball wasn’t flying very well. It was kind of dying. When I hit it, I knew I got it, but I didn’t know if it was going to carry over. Then I saw it go over and it was all right.”

It wasn’t the only grand slam that helped define a regional semifinal victory.

Pleasant Plains led Beardstown 4-2 going to the bottom of the seventh in Tuesday’s nightcap at the Ferd, but two hit batters and a single loaded the bases for the Tigers with one out. Jacob Pate followed with a walk-off grand slam to center field for a 6-4 victory.

Now, the second-seeded Raiders (30-2) and the third-seeded Tigers (22-4) gear up for a rubber match at 11 a.m. Saturday with a regional title at stake. Beardstown beat QND 9-6 at home on April 14, while the Raiders won 4-1 at the Ferd on April 21.

The Raiders have won 21 consecutive games since the loss at Beardstown.

“We have to stay focused on ourselves and doing our jobs,” said right-hander Tyler Dance, who battled through a tough second inning when control escaped him to work five innings and allow just three hits. “We have to stay focused on the moment.”

That was imperative in Dance’s case.

Staked to five-run lead — the Raiders tacked on a run in the first inning when Jake Schisler scored on Michael Stupavsky’s sacrifice fly — Dance got the first out of the second inning with a groundout. He then walked a batter, hit a batter and allowed a Josh Harris single to load the bases.

Back-to-back walks forced in two runs, and a sacrifice fly plated a third. Dance finally escaped further damage with a lineout to right field.

“I was falling off to my left and I wasn’t finishing over my front leg,” Dance said. “My release point on my curveball wasn’t there, but I got through it.”

In that moment, he needed to reset.

“You have to come in the dugout and settle yourself down,” Dance said. “My teammates had my back. So I had to focus on myself and focus on what I needed to do to get better.”

Everyone in the dugout reminded Dance he didn’t need to be perfect. He just needed to get outs.

“We’re trying to help him through the situations,” Connoyer said. “You’re constantly telling him, ‘Hey, we’re here for you.’ Whether it’s ground balls or fly balls, we’re going to make the plays. Coming into the dugout, we were like, ‘We’re going to get those back. Don’t panic. We’ve got it.’”

And they did. The Raiders scored twice in the third inning on an error and a Jack Linenfelser single. In the fourth, Brady Kindhart delivered a two-run single. And in the fifth, QND plated four runs with Connoyer delivering an RBI double, Harry Oden smacking an RBI single and Oden scoring the walk-off run on a wild pitch.

“Showing everyone we’re here to play and showing them we can hit was important,” Connoyer said.

QND collected 11 hits with Connoyer going 3 for 4 and Kindhart 3 for 3, while Jake Schisler had two hits. Dance finished with five strikeouts against three walks.

“We’ve got to clean up the little things,” Connoyer said. “We’ll do that in practice and we’ll be ready to play Saturday.”