HAMILTON — Mac Meara was on a wild roller-coaster rider of emotions in the seventh inning.
Meara scored the winning run when he forced a balk by attempting to steal home and then closed the game on the mound after he entered in relief with one out and runners on first and second as the fourth-seeded Hamilton West baseball team upset top-seeded Notre Dame, 5-4, in a Mercer County Tournament semifinal game packed with drama on Tuesday night at Bob DeMeo Field inside Veterans Park.
“It’s surreal,” Meara said.
The Hornets’ junior was nearly the goat instead of the hero when he lost track of the score and outs and failed to tag up on a fly ball to left field in which he would have easily scored the go-ahead run in the seventh inning after Hamilton loaded the bases with no outs.
After Notre Dame reliever Dylan Palmer struck out the next batter and got two strikes against AJ Maddalena, Meara noticed that Palmer — an electric left-hand hitting shortstop who is pitching for the first time in his high school career as the Irish’s closer — was working from the wind up and broke for home causing him to balk.
“After the fly ball, I didn’t realize we were tied and I thought we were down by one,” Meara said. “I was really pissed off. We saw that he was in the wind up, so (coach Mike Moceri Jr.) told me to go. We got in a 2-2 count and I was creeping down because he didn’t start his wind up and once he started I broke and he balked.
“When I scored, I thought it was a tie game. I was waiving and I didn’t know what was going on. You just do things, it’s crazy.”
Crazy is a great adjective for this game.
The Hornets (15-6) won by scoring two runs in the seventh without a hit. In face, they had just two hits in a game where the teams combined for nine errors (five by Notre Dame; four by Hamilton).
“It was unbelievable,” Moceri said. “It was ugly, but unbelievable. Our guys have been practicing hard all year, working on little things and a lot of things we executed today got us our runs.”
Moceri is old school in the way he likes to use the bunt. If you get down and put it in a good spot, there’s a good chance the other team is going to throw it away. That was the case here as the Irish (15-3) threw the ball down the right field line three times attempting to defend a bunt.
Hamilton wasn’t much better itself, defensively, and was twice made to pay for errant pick off throws to first base. In total, five the game’s nine errors were committed by pitchers trying to throw to first base.
ND also had two runners cut down at the plate, including one on a 3-2-6 put out when Hornets shortstop Michael Drosos came racing in to cover the plate and tagged out Brendan Buecker in third inning to prevent a third run from scoring on a play where the ball was thrown wildly to first base.
“You can’t have five errors and walk (seven) because that played right into Hamilton’s game,” Irish coach Joe Drulis said. “They got two hits and won the game. We’ve got to play better defense. We do work on it. We came up short.”
ND got the lead thanks in large part to Palmer (4-for-4, two doubles) and Jackson Wargo at the top of the lineup as the duo scored all four runs and reached base in six of its eight trips to the plate. Jack Hughes’ RBI double to plate Wargo in the fifth gave the Irish a 4-3 lead.
Hamilton starter Dylan Parsons went 6.1 innings and allowed four runs (two earned) on eight hits, walked three and struck out seven to keep his team in it.
Trailing 4-3 in the seventh, the first two Hornet batters reached on walks and Moceri called for Drosos to drop down the team’s fifth bunt of the night. Drosos placed it between the pitcher and third baseman and the errant throw allowed the tying run to score.
“The (bunt) is gone at the higher levels, but when they execute at the higher levels they still have problems fielding it,” Moceri said. “In an atmosphere like this if you get some pressure on the other team they made some mistakes. We did what we needed to do.”
Hamilton now heads to the MCT championship game for the ninth time and is in search of its third title. The Hornets will be matched up against second-seeded Hun, which won the first semifinal, 6-2, over West Windsor-Plainsboro South.
“We just beat a top-10 team in the state,” Meara said. “There’s no one we can’t beat right now.”
Hamilton (15-6) 001 200 2 — 5 2 4
Notre Dame (15-3) 002 020 0 — 4 8 5
WP: Parsons. LP: Palmer. S: Meara. 2B: Palmer 2, Hughes (ND). RBI: Costantino (HW). Buecker, Hughes (ND).
