BELLVILLE — A decade has passed since Joe Staab and his Clear Fork teammates went on their rampage, but memories of that magical spring are never far from the surface.
It was 2010 and the Colts were in the midst of the greatest season in program history, battering one over-matched opponent after another into submission. Clear Fork capped it with a Division III state championship on a steamy Sunday afternoon at Huntington Park in Columbus, run-ruling Wheelersburg 14-3 in the weather-delayed title game.
Coach Jeremy Riddle’s Colts finished the year with a 32-2 record and scored a jaw-dropping 378 runs. Of Clear Fork’s 32 victories, 19 came via the 10-run mercy rule.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been 10 years,” said Staab, who played collegiately at Division III Heidelberg before eventually succeeding his father, Rusty, as Clear Fork’s coach. “That was a special time for all of us.
“Most of us started playing together when we were 8 or 9 years old. To win a state championship with your best friends, it’s a dream come true.”
Clear Fork’s 2010 roster included no fewer than six future college baseball players and one college football player.
Staff ace Travis Hissong pitched at Division I Wright State before playing professionally in the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Brewers organizations. No. 2 pitcher Brendan Liberti played at the University of Akron. Left fielder Jake Dickerson was the 2015 Crossroads League Player of the Year for Mount Vernon Nazarene University. Mike Kochheiser and Logan Perkins would join Dickerson at The Naz. Shortstop Jordan McCune went on to a successful football career at Ashland University.
“I’ve had the good fortune to play on a lot of talented teams, but to have that many college-level players on the same high school team was special,” said Hissong, who played four seasons of minor league baseball and now lives in suburban Detroit.
“Especially for a small public school. Where I live now, there are a lot of private schools and they have kids who are going to play in the SEC or ACC. But when you’re talking about a public school, especially one the size of Clear Fork, we were pretty fortunate to have so many good players with size and speed — just athletic guys,” Hissong said.
Clear Fork’s remarkable 2010 season took root during the previous spring. The Colts reached the Division II regional semifinals in 2009, upsetting Division II poll champ Sandusky Perkins 3-1 in the district finals along the way.
In the regional semifinals, the Colts left 10 runners on base in a 2-0 loss to Lima Shawnee. Hissong took the loss despite giving up just five hits.
“We finished on a bad note. We had higher expectations for ourselves the year before,” said Liberti, who was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and a walk in the regional semifinal loss to Shawnee. “I didn’t impact that game the way I felt like I should have and I was so mad.
“I told myself that I’m never going to let that happen again.”
Seven of the nine starters in the 2009 regional semifinal loss were underclassmen. What’s more, Clear Fork found out it would drop to Division III the following spring.
“Going down to D3, we told ourselves we had to win it all,” said Dickerson, who drove in 58 runs from the No. 6 spot in the lineup in 2010 and belted two grand slams in the same inning in a win over Mansfield Senior. “We felt like we were too good of a team and to drop from Division II to Division III, there were no excuses for us.”
The 2010 season got off to an inauspicious start. The Colts lost their opener to Mount Vernon in a game that was suspended because of darkness and had to be resumed at a later date. After that, Clear Fork ripped off 23 straight wins before falling to Madison 7-4 in their final home game of the regular season.
“We only had two losses and they were the two most important games of the (regular) season,” Staab said. “We lost our first game of the year and we lost on Senior Day, our last home game.”
Clear Fork’s remarkable tournament run almost ended before it started. The Colts dodged a bullet with a 6-3 win over Galion in the sectional final on a rare off-day for Hissong.
“I had a rough outing, probably my worst outing of the year,” Hissong remembered. “Luckily, Brendan came in and shut things down.”
It would be Hissong’s only bad outing of the postseason. He fired three hitless innings and struck out four in a run rule-shortened 16-1 win over Margaretta in the district semifinals at Heidelberg University’s Peaceful Valley, helping his own cause with a two-run single in Clear Fork’s 10-run third inning.
Staab was 3-for-3 with three RBIs and two runs scored while Liberti was 3-for-4 with a double and three runs scored and Dickerson doubled twice.
Two days later, Liberti got the ball in the district championship game against Edison and fired a complete-game five-hitter in a 3-1 win. He struck out four and benefitted from a a spectacular defensive effort that included McCune’s sensational bare-handed play in the fifth inning.
“As well as we played in the regular season, we took it to another place in the postseason,” McCune said. “It was just the chemistry we had together. We spent so much time together and we didn’t want to let each other down.”
The Colts, who were ranked second in the final Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association state poll in Division III, advanced to the Elida regional tournament with a potential showdown against poll champ Coldwater looming in the regional final.
Clear Fork held up its end of the bargain with an 8-5 win over Heath in the regional semifinals as Hissong struck out 11 in a complete-game six-hitter and Liberti belted a two-run home run in the sixth.
Elmwood upset Coldwater in the other regional semifinal game and gave Clear Fork all it wanted in the regional final before the Colts erupted for five run in the fourth inning of a 6-4 win. Just a sophomore, Perkins came up with arguably the biggest hit of the tournament, belting a three-run homer over the scoreboard at Ed Sandy Memorial Field.
Perkins then came on in relief of Liberti in the bottom of the seventh with the bases loaded and nobody out. He got out of the jam with a double-play ball and ended it with a strikeout, sending Clear Fork to the state tournament for the first time in school history.
“Perkins was so clutch with that three-run bomb,” Dickerson said. “Then he had to come on for Brendan in a tough spot in the seventh. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.”
The start of Clear Fork’s state semifinal game against Independence was delayed because the early Division III state semifinal between Wheelersburg and Hamilton Badin went 12 innings. Wheelersburg won it when catcher Caleb Leach, who had struck out in his previous four at bats, belted a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 12th. It was Leach’s first and only homer of the season.
When the Colts finally took the field, more than two hours after the scheduled 7 p.m. first pitch, Hissong was overpowering. He gave up just one hit, a first-inning single, and struck out 11 in the 5-0 win. Clear Fork managed just four hits off Independence All-Ohioan Josh Suvak, but three of them came in the three-run second. Eric Kline had a run-scoring triple, while Staab and Justin Blake each singled in a run.
“That semifinal game was the funner game because we got to play under the lights. It was like we were in the bigs,” Dickerson said. “I didn’t hit very well that night, but none of us did.”
That wouldn’t be the case in the state final, but the Colts would have to endure a weather delay before hoisting the championship trophy.
Clear Fork’s state semifinal was played on a Thursday and the championship game was to be played the following Saturday. The Colts and Wheelersburg played one scoreless inning Saturday before rain forced the game to be postponed until Sunday.
Clear Fork squandered a scoring opportunity in top of the first when Matt Squires failed to get down a suicide squeeze with one out and the bases loaded and Blake was tagged out at the plate. Squires would strike out looking to end the inning, but the senior third baseman would atone for his miscue in a big way the following day.
The Saturday postponement meant Wheelersburg ace Andrew Elliott would be eligible to pitch when the state final resumed Sunday afternoon. The Ohio High School Athletic Association rule at the time stipulated that a pitcher could pitch up to 10 innings in a three-day span. Elliott, who would join Hissong at Wright State, threw 10 innings in the state semifinal game Thursday and would not have been eligible to pitch if the game had been played as scheduled on Saturday.
“We knew they were excited because they could throw Elliott against us,” Staab said. “But he threw a bunch of pitches in their semifinal game (125) and was probably sitting four or five miles per hour under where he would normally be sitting. We knew we would get to him.”
Riddle decided to stay with Liberti when the game resumed. The big left-hander, who threw 139 pitches in the regional final, retired the side in order in the bottom of the first before the game was suspended, but the extended outings in the district and regional championship games had taken their toll.
“In the regionals, I threw so many pitches that when I came into state I was feeling kind of rough when I warmed up,” Liberti said. “When I came back again, I felt rougher. I could not throw a strike to save my life.”
Clear Fork took a 1-0 lead in the second when Dickerson drew a leadoff walk and scored on Kline’s RBI-double. The Colts added three more in the top of the third when McCune stroked a one-out double and Liberti reached on an error, bringing Squires to the plate. Squires worked the count full then sent a sinking liner to center on the seventh pitch of the at bat.
Wheelersburg center fielder Alex Shears made a diving attempt, but the ball squirted under Shears’ glove and rolled all the way to the wall. Squires came around to score, his three-run inside-the-park home run spotting the Colts to a 4-0 lead.
“I don’t know which was bigger, Perkins’ home run in the regional final or Squires’ inside-the-parker in the championship game,” Dickerson said. “They were the two biggest hits of our entire tournament run.”
Wheelersburg got to Liberti for two runs in the third cut it to 4-3 in the fourth before Hissong came on to extinguish the threat.
The Colts scored three runs in the fifth off Elliiott. Dickerson rocketed a two-run double to left and Hissong followed with a double into the gap in left-center, plating Dickerson and spotting the Colts to a 7-3 lead. Elliott finished the inning, but wouldn’t return for the sixth.
“I went to (Wright State) with Andrew he always talked about how sore he was for that game,” Hissong said. “He basically carried that team to the finals between his pitching and his hitting. He came to Wright as a middle infielder then transitioned to pitcher and ended up getting drafted by the Baltimore Orioles.”
Hissong worked out of jam in the bottom of the fifth before the Colts iced it with seven runs in the sixth. Liberti and Hissong both belted two-run triples.
Leading 14-3 and needing just three outs to bring an early end to the state title game, Hissong took matters into his own hands. He struck out the first two hitters he faced looking before surrendering a towering double to Elliott, his future college teammate.
Hissong sealed the deal with his fifth and final strikeout of the afternoon, sparking a celebration that has echoed through the Clear Fork valley for the past 10 years.
“As I get older and time goes on, I’ve learned to appreciate it much more,” McCune said. “There are a bunch of individual moments I could talk about, but the best feeling was the accomplishment not just for the team but for the the entire community.”
The bonds the 2010 Colts formed during their careers, from youth travel baseball to their crowning achievement a decade ago, have stood the test of time. Hissong got married about a month ago in Michigan. Three of his groomsmen were Staab, Liberti and Dickerson.
“Playing together all those years, we weren’t just a team. We were family,” Dickerson said. “On my state championship ring, I had ‘family forever’ etched on the inside.
“We see each other three or four times a year and when we get together, it’s like we’re back in that moment again.”