Gray leads Margaretta to Bay win over Huron

HURON — Zach Gray picked up where he left off. After a one-hit, 14-strikeout performance last week against Vermilion, the first six outs Gray recorded Thursday were strikeouts. Gray registered 11 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings, added three extra-base hits at the plate and led Margaretta to a 9-1 Sandusky Bay Conference Bay Division win over Huron. "When you're putting runs up every inning and you have Zach Gray on the mound, you're in a pretty good place," Polar Bears coach Ray Neill said. "Simple. A lot of the runs we were putting up on the board were because of Zach Gray in the batter's box. He was really, really good for us in a really, really big game." Gray, hitting leadoff, had two doubles and a triple, scoring twice. Right behind him, Bren Smith reached base in all five plate appearances. "The two guys at the top of the order make us go," Neill said. "They've done it all year and they got it done again today." The two got Margaretta (14-4, 8-1 SBC Bay) going early. In the first inning, Gray was hit by a pitch before Smith sliced a single into left field. Hunter Grahl then reached on an error to load the bases. Emmett Leibengood followed with a single before Memphis McKenzie drew a walk to make it 2-0. In the second inning, Gavin Berg singled. Pinch-runner Phinn Headley was at second when Gray roped a triple to the wall. He later scored on a wild pitch, giving Margaretta a 4-0 lead. "They kicked our butt in all facets of the game," Huron coach Dan Lindsley said. "Zach Gray is a competitor and a hell of an athlete. He showed it offensively and pitching-wise. We didn't bring the intensity they brought. They brought it from the minute they got off the bus. I thought it all started with Zach. He comes from a baseball pedigree and did it all tonight." Gray faced little resistance as he was on fire early. He struck out the side in order in the first inning. Grant Periat led off the second with a double, but Gray struck out the next three hitters. He put the Tigers (10-8, 5-4) down in order in the third inning. "That's what he's been doing all year," Neill said. "If you look at the numbers, the numbers are record-breaking. We haven't won a conference baseball championship in 33 years and this was a huge game today. Zach Gray went out in the middle of the diamond and in the batter's box and was outstanding today." The Polar Bears scored a run in the third and made it 6-0 in the fourth inning with a Grahl RBI single. Huron had its best chance in the fourth inning. Landon Hohler walked, Periat singled and Max Jacobs reached on an error to load the bases. But, Gray struck out the next two batters to keep Huron off the board. "I thought the bulk of our guys started to hit Gray pretty well," Lindsley said. "If it's a 2-0 or 3-0 game, I think things change a little bit. You can do different things, but the problem was they kept tacking on every inning. That's a credit to them. That puts us in a hole where we need to have a big inning." Gray doubled in a run in the top of the fifth and Mason Kromer had a RBI single in the sixth inning. Gray's only blemish came in the fifth inning when singles from Casey Cox and Austin Sas gave Hohler a chance with a runner in scoring position. He singled into left for the Tigers' only run of the game. "From a team perspective, their dugout and their coaching staff had their guys ready to go," Lindsley said. "We didn't respond." Gray got a flyout to start the seventh inning, but that brought an end to his day after 99 pitches. Neill said he wanted to keep the pitch count down with a lot of big games coming up for the Polar Bears. "Maybe he deserved a chance to walk off the field and get a little applause from the fans in green," Neill said. Huron finds itself just above .500 with the postseason draw Sunday. The Tigers are off until Monday when they travel to Vermilion. "We have a lot of guys that are on islands right now," Lindsley said. "The biggest thing with baseball, even though individually you pitch, you catch, you throw or you hit, you have to do it together. You have to pick each other. We have to go back to the drawing board and try to find that. If we can, we're a pretty good. If we can't, we're not a very good team. "You saw that tonight. Unfortunately, it was the bad side of it." Since a loss to Edison on April 23, Margaretta has won six straight games. The Polar Bears face Monroeville on Friday, Toledo Christian on Saturday and go for that first league title since 1993 on Tuesday when they host Willard. "We've been playing well," Neill said. "Even in the game against Edison, we got beat 2-0 against a good team and a good pitcher. We've been playing good baseball. Guys are working hard on non-game days, both on the practice field and in the weight room. It's paying off." Margaretta 221 112 0 — 9 14 1 Huron 000 010 0 — 1 6 3 WP: Gray. LP: Periat. 2B: (M) Gray 2; (H) Periat. 3B: (M) Gray