Douglas Miles

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – The wait continues for Solon baseball.

The Class 3A seventh-ranked Spartans entered the postseason with a deserved top seed in their bracket, which earned them a chance to play a substate final at home.

Unfortunately for Solon, a red-hot Davenport Assumption team arrived with talent and state tournament experience.

“We knew we were going to get, at some point, there was going to be some adversity,” Solon Coach Keith McSweeney said after the Spartans were derailed by No. 10 Assumption, 12-4, Wednesday at Solon High School. “We were going to have to take a punch. They came out and swung it. They were hitting the fastball all night. So credit to them. They had 13 hits. They took their walks and we just didn’t execute pitches when we needed to. Ultimately and I think tonight, at least, they played well enough to win and we didn’t.”

Davenport Assumption (27-13) seized the early momentum with a four-run first inning, tacked on five more runs later with a pair of home runs and scored in every inning but one.

The Knights also got strong pitching performances from starter Greyson Ballinger (four strikeouts in three innings) and senior Bailey Alvarez (just two hits and one run allowed in five innings).

“We wanted to try to drive up their first guy’s pitch count and we were able to do that,” McSweeney said. “But then I thought the Alvarez kid came in and did a nice job keeping our hitters off balance. And he executed some pitches and we couldn’t get any traffic in the late innings.”

Sophomore Luke Merrick homered for the 11th time this season for Solon, which ended its season at 24-10.

It has been eight years since the Spartans last qualified for the state baseball tournament, but losing just three seniors from the starting lineup to graduation and returning nine of 12 pitchers should bode well for the 2027 team.

“You always tell your seniors how proud of them you are, and we were,” McSweeney said. “It was a special group. A lot to be proud of. It is never easy getting to the state tournament, though. You are going to run into some really good teams and we did tonight.”

Davenport Assumption        401  213  1  –   12  13  1

Solon                                      012  000  1  –    4    6   1

W – Greyson Ballinger                       L – Luke Deike

2B – SOL: Maddox Kelley (2). DA: Jaedin Swain (2)

HR – SOL: Luke Merrick. DA: Nolan Dittmer, Easton Jansen

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