Wiewel finishes what he starts, makes defensive play to end Raiders’ one-run win over Blue Devils

QUINCY — Bradi Lahr had no doubt Abram Wiewel would make the play.

“It’s Abram Wiewel,” said Lahr, a junior right-handed pitcher for the Quincy Notre Dame baseball team. “He’s the best ballplayer I’ve been on a team with. I had trust in him the whole time.”

With the Raiders leading Quincy High School 5-4, runners on first and second and two out in the top of the seventh during Saturday’s game at QU Stadium, Lahr induced a pop up to shallow right field off the bat of James Day. Wiewel, playing second base after pitching the first five innings, ranged to his left and tracked the ball amidst the cloudy sky and swirling wind.

“I thought it was going to go out at first, but then the wind pushed it back,” Wiewel said.

Freshman first baseman Eli Johnson gave way to Wiewel.

“I was like, ‘I have no clue where it was,’” Johnson said. “I knew he had the better angle, so I let him take it.”

Like Lahr, Johnson had a good feeling Wiewel would track it down.

“I knew he was going to be there,” Johnson said. “He’s just the type of kid that’s always there. He’s always been there.”

Wiewel was there. He squeezed the ball in his glove at the edge of the infield turf near the foul line and put the finishing touches on a 5-4 Raiders victory in the final game of a triangular that included Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin.

“There was never a doubt if I was going to make a play,” Wiewel said. “It just went up and the wind pushed it right back to me.”

Johnson let out a sigh of relief.

“I was like, ‘Thank the Lord,’” Johnson said. “If that ball would have dropped, I don’t know what would have happened. They had so much momentum at that point that they were probably going to win that game if the ball dropped.”

Lahr pumped his fists and shouted in excitement on his way to celebrate with his teammates.

“I was on top of the world,” Lahr said. “All I wanted to do was beat QHS and close that out.”

The Raiders began that half inning leading 5-2, but the Blue Devils scored two runs with two outs on an RBI double off the left-center field wall by Nate Konrad and subsequent run-scoring single by Mason Dent. A Mason Ritter walk preceded Day’s popout.

“Twenty-one outs, man,” QND coach Rich Polak said. “You’ve got to play to the end.”

Blue Devils coach Rick Lawson commended his team for their competitive at-bats in the final inning.

“(The last out) is the hardest to get,” Lawson said. “They kept battling, working deep counts, fouling pitches off, and finding a way to get on base. It’s not always a line drive up the middle or a ball hit over the fence. Just put the ball in play and good things happen.”

Wiewel gave up one earned run in five innings while striking out seven and walking three. He surrendered a solo home run to Trace Routh in the second and allowed an unearned run on a one-out single by Drake Gibson that drove in Kade Parkhill, who reached on an error to begin the inning. 

Wiewel worked around two singles with two outs in the fourth and a one-out walk in the fifth. He struck out Dent to end the fifth after falling behind 3-0 in the count.

“He wasn’t his sharpest today, especially with two strikes,” Polak said. “He was leaving a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate, but it’s his first outing of the year. There may be some nerves, some excitement in there. I 100 percent expect him to be even better next time out.”

In the first game of the day, the Blue Devils rallied from a 5-1 deficit to tie Sacred Heart-Griffin in the bottom of the fifth, but SHG’s Ethan Cour broke the tie with a one-out, two-RBI double in the top of the sixth as the Cyclones secured a 7-5 victory.

The Blue Devils got the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, but Gibson grounded out to Cyclones pitcher Drew Ward, who then retired the Blue Devils in order in the seventh.

“I told them in the huddle, ‘Not all losses are created equal,’” Lawson said. “We played two pretty good games today. We gave ourselves a chance to win both, and that’s all you can really ask for.”

The Cyclones jumped out to a 9-0 lead in the second inning and beat QND 12-4 in the second game.

Johnson went 2 for 3 in both games and delivered an RBI single in the third inning against the Blue Devils that gave the Raiders a 4-2 lead.

“I was just seeing the ball well, getting pitches I could drive,” Johnson said. “I just feasted on what they gave me.”

The Raiders (1-1) travel to Pleasant Plains to take on the Cardinals on Tuesday. The Blue Devils (0-4) will also hit the road Tuesday to play Belleville West.