ARCHBOLD — Now that’s something you don’t see every day.
No. 1-ranked Defiance will play for its 16th district title in school history on Saturday after defeating Toledo Central Catholic in the Division II district semifinals for the second straight year on Friday at Archbold’s Memorial Park. Defiance (26-1) earned a 1-0 victory over the Irish (14-13), despite getting no-hit by TCC senior and Ohio University signee Jake Rudnicki.
“I have been part of one of these before, it happened in the 1996 ACME state championship game when I was at Bryan,” stated Defiance mentor Tom Held. “We beat Whitmer 1-0 and got no-hit. We were fortunate  tonight ... when you get no-hit, there’s a good chance you’re not going to win.
“We were very fortunate to scratch one across,” added Held. “We thought we had chances to break it open early, but again, we just couldn’t get a hit. Credit Jake Rudnicki, he pitched a heck of a game. He’s got great numbers so he’s doing something right. Once he settled in he was very good.”
Central Catholic mentor Jeff Mielcarek was certainly disappointed to lose to the Bulldogs again (DHS downed TCC 2-0 in 2012), especially since his team had chances against ace Rob Zeigler.
“It was a great high school baseball game,” said Mielcarek, whose team beat Defiance 9-8 on May 2 to hand the Bulldogs their only loss of the season. “The reality is they’re a very good team, I’m not telling you any secrets. It’s tough to give up outs (sacrifice bunts) against a good pitcher (Zeigler) like we did today, but that’s the way we had to play to have any chance. We couldn’t come up with a big hit, so we tip our hat to him. He made pitches he needed to make with men on base today.”
Defiance scored the only run in the game in the bottom of the second, taking advantage of a miscue.
With one out and Weston Rivers on first, Joe Keween coaxed a walk from Rudnicki to advance Rivers to second. Garrett Sierra came in to pinch run for Rivers with Derek Turner up to bat. Rudnick, who finished with eight strikeouts and four walks, set Turner down on strikes, bringing Austin Hancock to the plate with two outs.
On a 3-2 offering from the TCC senior and with the DHS runners moving, Hancock hit a grounder to shortstop Richard O’Donnell. The throw to first baseman John Balcerzak was over his head, however, allowing Sierra to score what proved to be the winning run. From there, it was up to Zeigler and his defense, to make it stand up.
Central Catholic’s best chance to tie or go in front came in the third when the Irish got runners to second and third with one out thanks to Defiance’s lone error of the game. After a meeting on the mound by Held, the Defiance righty stepped up, and then got some help.
Zeigler, now 8-0 on the season, struck out Ryan O’Hearn for the second out of the frame, bringing No. 3 hitter Colin Kaucher to the dish. Kaucher stung a ball to short center field, but Defiance’s Jacob Green came up with a superb diving catch to end the threat and keep TCC off the scoreboard.
“As soon as the ball was hit I had a good read ... I knew I had to make a play on it,” said Green. “As soon as I started running, and especially when I left my feet, I knew it was going into my mitt.”
Said Held: “Robbie got big outs today when he needed to, he got the strikeout for the second out in the third inning, and then Jacob Green makes a game-saving catch. If he misses that, game over. But, Jacob has done that all season long, I would have been more surprised if he didn’t catch it.”
Twice more the Irish got a runner into scoring position, only to come up empty thanks to Zeigler and the DHS defense. Dom Romero made a nice catch in left, Dom Gentile finished off a bang-bang play from third and Wes Detter caught the final out of the game in foul territory deep in right field.
“The defense was there all day,” said Zeigler. “The guys made great plays when we needed them.
“I really relied on my curveball,” added the DHS righty. “Once I got it over, I got in a groove.”
Defiance will face No. 2 Sandusky Perkins on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the district finals. Perkins defeated Bowling Green Friday evening, 6-3.

Tol. Cent. Cath.    000  000  0  -  0  4  2
Defiance               010  000  x  -  1  0  1
Records: Defiance 26-1, Toledo Central Catholic 14-13.
Winning pitcher: Rob Zeigler (7 innings, 0 runs, 4 hits, 10 strikeouts, 1 walk).
Losing pitcher: Jake Rudnicki (6 innings, 1 run, 0 hits, 8 strikeouts, 4 walks).
Leading hitters: (Toledo Central Catholic, 4 hits). (Defiance, 0 hits).