BELLVILLE — The ingredients of the mystery dish include a pinch of oregano, a dash of parmesan and a few slices of pepperoni — and it is the recipe for Clear Fork’s postseason success.
The Colts are cooking up something special.
Clear Fork (18-12) will play second-ranked Warren Champion (25-3) in the Division III state semifinals at 10 a.m. Thursday at Huntington Park in Columbus. It is Clear Fork’s second straight appearance in the state semifinals.
Anyone who has followed the team throughout the playoffs has almost certainly heard the chants echoing off the dugout walls.
“O-reg-an-o! O-reg-an-o!”
So what’s the story?
“We have a word of the day that we chant in the dugout and ‘oregano’ was our first word of the day in the tournament,” said junior infielder Jared Lind, whose double to the base of the wall in right field drove in the winning run in a 2-0 regional semifinal victory over Ottawa-Glandorf. “We mix in a couple ‘parmesans’ and ‘pepperonis.’ ”
The genesis of Clear Fork’s unorthodox battle cries can be traced to last year’s unlikely run to the state tournament. The Colts would regularly have a pregame meal consisting of spaghetti.
“We say it must be in the sauce,” Clear Fork coach Rusty Staab said at the time when asked about his team’s playoff success.
The slogan took on a life of its own. Clear Fork’s Final Four t-shirts last spring featured a jar of pasta sauce prominently on the front.
“Oregano is in the sauce,” Lind said. “It’s just kind of something we do to keep ourselves loose in the dugout.”
Clear Fork’s fast and loose approach to the postseason has been a resounding success. The Colts have outscored their playoff opponents by a combined score of 34-3 and posted a pair of shutouts in the regional tournament, including a 10-0 run rule-shortened win over Pemberville Eastwood in the regional championship game.
“Sometimes it’s a battle of the cheerleaders,” Staab said after Clear Fork’s district semifinal win over Edison. “We’ve got a bunch of knuckleheads and sometimes they can be a little obnoxious, but they are just having fun and its all clean stuff. They aren’t directing anything at the opposing team.”
The Colts will need any advantage they can muster against the Golden Flashes. Champion will likely send hard-throwing lefty Drake Batcho to the hill. The junior, who boasts a fastball that is consistently clocked in the upper-80s, struck out nine and walked seven in a 9-3 regional semifinal win over Lutheran West.
Clear Fork’s offense has been bolstered by the return of leadoff hitter Thomas Staab, the coach’s son. The speedy switch-hitting junior sets the table for the likes of Luke Clark and Gavin Bailey, who belted a grand slam in the regional championship game.
“We’ve got guys who have been in this situation before,” Thomas Staab said last week. “We know what pressure we will face and we know how to handle it.”
