By TIM IRVING
On Memorial Day, Ian McNabb took the hill for Webster Thomas against Spencerport and lasted just two-thirds of an inning, walking five Rangers.
The senior left-hander got the call again in the Class A Sectional semifinals, with markedly different results.
“Last time I faced them, I was struggling really early in at bats, today I got out there with a lot of first pitch strikes,” McNabb said after allowing only two infield singles to the Rangers in a 1-0 Titans victory.
Number one Webster Thomas hosts third-seeded Greece Athena in Tuesday’s championship game.
Through the first five innings, McNabb allowed no hits, one walk and hit one batter while striking out eight.
Meanwhile, Spencerport senior Devin Cannon fought his way out of a first inning bases loaded jam, but in the third, Greyson McDonnell singled to right, moved to third on a fielder’s choice and scored when Nick Wood grounded to third and the throw to first was up the line and pulled the first baseman off the bag.
McNabb didn’t allow a ball out of the infield in the first five innings and struck out his ninth batter before Frank Grad hit a slow grounder to short and beat it out for the Rangers’ first hit of the game in the top of the sixth.
“That’s normally what I do, keep everything low, get a lot of ground balls and rely on my fielders,” McNabb said of his teammates, who committed no errors in the game.
13th seeded Spencerport won their previous two games in the top of the seventh and when Shaun Cannon led off the seventh with the Rangers’ second hit of the game, it looked like there might be yet another rally. Andrew Simoncelli grounded out to short, moving Cannon to second and then Scott Zyra flew out to center allowing Cannon to tag and move to third with two outs.
Thomas coach Kevin Neenan went out and visited McNabb.
“I said, here’s the one out we’ve been looking for, we’ve been talking about a long time and see how he wanted to attack him and he said, I wanna go right at him,” Neenan said.
McNabb gave up just his second fly ball of out of the game, a wind-blown ball to right center that Mitchell Kelly hauled in for the final out.
The Titans and Trojans didn’t play each other this season, except for a preseason game in early May but there is a lot of mutual respect between the teams.
Neenan said, “I’m just excited to see how much we improved even though we had to battle through a pandemic and what these kids have done and it’d mean the world to get a chance to hoist the brick but we know Jason Bunting and Greece Athena are very good.”
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