Bluebirds give Lincoln a brusin'

WINDSOR — Jessie Wolfe’s truck left the Class 2, District 14, championship game as battered as the Lincoln pitching staff.

Cole Camp continued its power-hitting display Wednesday with a 17-7 five-inning win against the Cardinals in the title game at the Eugene R. Schell Sports Complex in Windsor.

The Bluebirds (14-2) pounded four home runs — including two off Wolfe’s Dodge.

Cole Camp catcher Trenton Miller delivered the biggest of blows of the slugfest.

“His sophomore year, I took him on as a hitting project and I told people, I said, ‘By gosh, he’s going to be the top hitter we have in our program in the next couple of years,’ and he has been exactly that,” Cole Camp coach Todd Rusk said. “The grand slam was definitely sweet for him.”

With two outs in the bottom of the second inning, the senior blasted a grand slam off the bed of the truck, which was parked beyond the leftfield fence.

“It actually left a dent, but I thought it shattered my windshield,” the Windsor student said. “It just got like where the window meets the cab.”

The shot gave Cole Camp a 13-6 cushion and prompted Wolfe to ask her friends if she should move her truck.

“Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” was the reply.

In the bottom of the third, freshman Zach Kollbaum hit his first career home run — it bounced off Wolfe’s truck. With Tyler Rusk on second, Kollbaum locked on a pitch out over the middle of the plate and launched it over the fence in left. The two-run homer gave the Bluebirds a 15-6 cushion and chased both Lincoln’s pitcher and Wolfe’s truck — she moved it while the Cardinals brought in Logan Treece.

“They’re good top to bottom,” Lincoln coach Will Lynde said. “We busted our butts just to get here. We had to come back down 10-2 in one game (against Crest Ridge) to win and then won in the bottom of the seventh (Tuesday) night (against Tipton).”

Cole Camp, which won its previous two district games by the 10-run mercy rule, got off to a hot start with five first-inning runs. Corey Vance started the offensive show with a no-doubter over the 332-foot sign in left center field — the deepest part of the park.

Kollbaum gave the Bluebirds a 2-0 lead when he singled home Miller. Josh Jackson followed with an RBI single to center, scoring Rusk. With the bases loaded, Ron Herdman was hit by a pitch and Garrett Gilbert drew a walk to score Kollbaum and Jesse Strickland, giving the Bluebirds a 5-0 cushion heading into the second.

Eager to keep pace with the Bluebirds’ offense, Lincoln (8-5) answered with six runs in the top half of the second to take the lead.

“We’ve got to scratch runs together and we did exactly what we wanted to do,” Lynde said. “That one inning right there, if we could’ve just come out and held them ...”

Alek Crull started the rally with a two-run single to center, scoring Drake Young and Robert Southard. The Cardinals got the next run in when Richard Banner and Crull combined for a double steal — Banner stole home while the Bluebirds tried to throw out Crull at second.

Crull scored on an error and Steven Wischmeier tied it at 5 with an RBI groundout to score Treece. Kevin Aery gave the Cardinals the lead when he scored on a wild pitch.

The Bluebirds didn’t flinch, scoring eight runs in the bottom of the second to take the lead for good.

“That was huge,” Todd Rusk said. “That was probably the nail.”

Caleb Eckhoff drove Miller home with a single to left and Rusk followed with a moonshot to left-center. The two-run homer gave Cole Camp an 8-6 lead. 

Miller’s grand slam capped the rally and gave the Bluebirds the 13-6 cushion heading into the third.

Cole Camp built on its lead with three more runs in the third on Kollbaum’s blast and Gilbert’s RBI single to right.

Lincoln added a run in the fifth on Crull’s sacrifice fly to left, scoring Southard and temporarily delaying the mercy rule.

Gilbert finished the game with a two-out double off the fence in right-center, scoring Herdman from first.

The Bluebirds advance to sectionals, where they will host El Dorado Springs on Monday.