The recent and distant past both offered hope for Crown Point heading into Monday’s Babe Ruth (13) Ohio Valley Regional championship game at Munster.
Crown Point, which won the Ohio Valley Regional as 12-year-olds last year, had outscored its three previous opponents 31-6.
But West Louisville, Ky., ended Crown Point’s dreams of a return trip to the Babe Ruth World Series, winning 7-3.
West Louisville capitalized on five Crown Point errors and allowed just six hits.
“We made more errors (Monday) than we did in our prior 11 games and (West Louisville) took advantage,” Crown Point coach Shawn Sabau said. “We’ve been playing really good baseball and it’s just unfortunate that this was the game where the wheels fell off. You compound the errors with the lack of hits and it’s just an unfortunate way to lose.”
Crown Point’s Blake Sabau and Cody DeJong talked about the team perhaps coming into the game with too much confidence.
“Our intensity just wasn’t there,” Sabau said. “We came in here thinking we were going to Arkansas (for the World Series) and maybe we were a little too confident by being the higher seed. We were playing phenomenal before this, it just wasn’t our game.”
“We won this last year and after (Sunday’s) games, I guess we thought we could do it again,” DeJong added. “I think we underestimated them a little bit.”
Crown Point scored twice in the first and once in the third with DeJong holding West Louisville scoreless through three.
However, things unraveled for Crown Point in the fourth as it committed a pair of errors and allowed five runs on four hits. West Louisville added two runs on three hits in the seventh.
“I knew I had a tough game ahead of me and that I had to pitch well,” DeJong said. “I was hitting my spots. But my off-speed wasn’t on, so they hit my fastballs a lot. I tried my best, but they’re a good hitting team and they were able to score on me.”
DeJong was the only Crown Point player with multiple hits, going 2-for-2 with a run and an RBI in what he believes will be the last time this group of teammates will play together.
“I loved playing with this team, I’m going to miss them a lot,” he said. “I didn’t want this to be our last day of baseball this year. I get to enjoy my summer now, but I really would have liked to be able to go to Arkansas.”
CJ Peters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
