Anderson Ford baseball team rallies to Area 5 Legion title

Anderson Ford Advances to the National Division state tournament in Norfolk and will face Omaha Central. Union Bank will face Creighton Prep at Omaha Skutt in the American Division. Both tournaments begin Saturday with both games tentatively slated for 10 a.m.

Anderson Ford defeated Union Bank 3-1 Monday to remain alive.

Union Bank took a 5-2 lead into the top of the ninth before Anderson rallied on four hits, including a pair of infield hits, to tie the game. Chase Lauver was hit by a pitch and Logan Cale singled. With one out, Austin Herzog reached on an infield hit before Wade Deist singled up the middle to drive in a run. Opfer’s infield single scored Cale, and Barnes laid down a bunt to score Herzog. Opfer retired Union Bank in order in the ninth to send the game to extra innings.

“We’ve done a good job of bunting in this tournament. We had three squeezes that have worked and our bunt game was kind of an answer to their bunt game,” said Anderson coach Lanny Bolles. “We had to do that because Union Bank sure knows how to bunt.”

Luke Recker got the winning rally started when he was hit by a pitch. He came home when Chase Lauver’s bunt was mishandled and the throw sailed wide of third base. Union Bank got a pair of outs before Herzog tripled in another run and then scored on Opfer’s single to right. Wade Deist, who walked, came in on a single by Kaden Barnes.

Union Bank got a run when Spencer Scheer singled in Riley Ward, who also reached on a hit, but Joe Richter, who relieved Opfer, got two fly balls to end the game.

Anderson Ford took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Opfer singled and scored on a bases-loaded walk. Union Bank answered in the bottom of the inning when Riley Ward doubled and scored on a wild pitch.

Anderson went back on top in the third when Braden Dey singled and came around on a dropped fly ball. Union Bank responded in the bottom of the inning when Scheer and Brock Wordekemper both singled, Scheer stole third and scored on a safety squeeze by Derek Kolbush.

Union Bank took a 4-2 lead in the fifth inning. Scheer singled, Wordekemper sacrificed and Kolbush singled before Scheer scored on a wild pitch. Tyler Crouse drove in Kolbush with a single to left.

Wordekemper singled to lead off the seventh and three straight bunts — a sacrifice by Kolbush, a bunt single by Crouse and a safety squeeze by Micah Hoage — brought him in.

“You expect the area tournament to be close games and the guys know that. This ended up higher scoring, but it was low scoring to start,” Bolles said. “This gives us so much momentum. It was a matter of getting the guys to believe they were good enough to win games like this.

“There’s no sugar-coating it. We were 4-20 last spring, but these guys kept at it to find a way to work on their craft. Our record doesn’t look like a championship team, but we just kept believing.”

(article and photo from Lincoln Journal Star, 7/20/16)