JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP —
Brice Comp had batted all of three times for the Jefferson baseball team as a senior. Frank Clayman, on the other hand, spent his senior season at Lakeside racing as around the bases with hit after hit.
The two couldn’t have been further apart in their roles at their respective high schools, but they did end their seasons in the same way. Clayman and Comp were the PlayAll Players of the Game for the Captains and Scrappers, respectively, at the Star Beacon Senior Classic on Monday at Cotton Field in the Havens Complex.
“I was 2-for-2 all year,” Comp said. “I was a pitcher. I do like to hit. I was just having fun.
“I can hit the ball. When I was up at bat, it was 0-2 or 1-2 or something. I was thinking I would strikeout and I hit the ball.”
“I was just having fun playing baseball with all the guys from around the county,” Clayman said. “It was a nice way to go out. It feels good to bring something back for Lakeside baseball.”
Comp was the starting pitcher for the Scrappers and worked the first two innings. He allowed one unearned run on two hits and three walks while striking out two. He broke up the no hitter being tossed by the Captains’ pitchers with a two-run double in the home half of the fifth.
“The guys all jumped up,” Comp said.
In the Scrappers’ nine-run sixth, Comp added a two-run single.
Clayman was hit by a pitch in the first before smacking a run-scoring triple to the gap in right center in the third.
“It feels nice to use my speed to my advantage,” Clayman said. “If you hit the ball to right field, it’s a long throw to third base. That gives me the advantage. That was my 12th triple.”
In the fifth, Clayman drove a ball into the right field corner and it looked as if he’d tripled for a second time, but Captains’ coach Russ Bell initially held Nick Blood up at third, forcing Clayman to stop at second. Blood then took off for home and scored, but the triple was out of the equation at that point.
Scaredy cat
It didn’t take the Grand Valley seniors long to show how they had kept each other loose all season. In the top of the first, the Captains’ Nick Stranman hit a sinking liner right at the Mustangs’ A.J. Henson, playing shortstop for the Scrappers.
Henson got a glove on it, but couldn’t make the play. First baseman Adam Moodt, also a Mustang, good-naturedly ribbed Henson.
“Dude, it scared me! I’m sorry,” was Henson’s response, drawing laughter from the crowd.
It didn’t take long for the Mustangs to involve the rest of the players at The Classic.
As Henson attempted to steal second off GV battery Joe Satterfield and Jeromy Rockafellow, Edgewood lefty Bobby Dragon covered second on the play and somehow missed Rockafellow’s throw.
“Bobby!” Rockafellow growled, in the manner of home plate umpire Scott Baker, for everyone to hear.
After Zach Popely of Edgewood walked, he and Henson pulled off a double steal. Rockafellow might have been able to gun down Popely at second, but his second baseman was sleeping on the play.
“Bobby! Pay attention!” Rockafellow teased his teammate, who had probably never played the position at any point in his life.
Showing some love
Edgewood’s Matt Burch didn’t see much playing time for Warriors, but he gained the love and respect of his teammates over the course of their careers.
In his first at-bat Monday, Burch took a pitch from Dragon and drilled it deep, but foul, up the right-field line.
“You’ll never live that down,” Edgewood teammate Jeff Imbrogno shouted to Dragon.
Eventually, Dragon got the strikeout.
Burch dropped his bat, removed his helmet and started toward the mound. Dragon met him halfway there and the pair exchanged a hug.
Former stars returned
Former Jefferson star Zak Blair, who is playing in the Cape Cod League in his summer break from Mercyhurst College, was in attendance. Also, one of the Players of the Game in the 2005 game, Andy Lipps of Conneaut, was in uniform and in the Scrappers dugout with father, Bill, who coaches at Edgewood. The younger Lipps, however, is a member of Jefferson coach Scott Barber’s staff.
Early in the contest, Bill Lipps was coaching third base while Andy was coaching first.
Ettinger is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.
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