Archbishop Hoban defeats Ellet 1-0 in sectional final behind Andrew Karhoff's gem

AKRON, Ohio – Archbishop Hoban knew it was in for a challenge in the OHSAA Division I sectional final on Thursday night with Ellet's Cameron Allen on the mound.

The Knights’ answer?

Sophomore pitcher Andrew Karhoff.

The Ohio State commit was more than up for the challenge, as he shut down Ellet on just three hits in Hoban’s 1-0 win and struck out 11 while not walking anyone.

“Andrew Karhoff, that’s what we expect out of him,” Hoban first-year head coach Derek Carmichael said. “He's just been phenomenal all year.”

Karhoff knew he had to be on his game on this day because Allen is one of the area’s best pitchers and just last year threw a no-hitter against Hoban in the regular season with 14 strikeouts and was coming off a 15-strikeout performance in the Akron City Series Championship game.

“Cam's great, he's a great pitcher,” Karhoff said. “I knew it was going to be a tight game, so I knew I just had to lock in and be perfect.”

Allen pitched well in his own right on Thursday, giving up just the one run on six hits. But the thought of a second no-hitter against Hoban went out the window immediately when Parker Falkenstein led off the bottom of the first with a single.

“(Our hitters) were very aggressive, very confident today,” Carmichael said. “And when you open up the game with a single, it kind of eases the tension for everybody.”

The Knights got that run in the second inning, when Nate Shimmel led off with a single. Allen tried to pick him off at first base but threw the ball away and Shimmel advanced to third with nobody out.

“I knew as soon as that ball passed, I was getting on three,” Shimmel said. “And I got on three with no outs and I knew we were scoring.”

He scored on a bouncer to short by Leo Wilson two hitters later.

That single run was all Hoban’s right-handed hurler needed, as he retired 17 of the last 18 hitters he faced. He did so without much help from the dugout.

“He called his own game today. He shakes me every other pitch regardless, so I let him call his own game today,” Carmichael said. “He's just very, very cerebral for a 16-year-old. He really understands baseball. And when you understand baseball and have the physical tools that he does, we just keep getting performances like that from him.”

Karhoff is in the playoff rotation this season after being a closer for the Knights in the playoffs last year. That’s what made this one special for the sophomore.

“(It ranks) really high in terms of high school,” Karhoff said. “(It was) my first playoff start. So that means a lot more than just a regular season start.

The Hoban defense was making plays behind Karhoff, with second baseman Brady Terzola flashing the leather twice for his pitcher.

With a runner on third for Ellet and one out in the fourth inning, Terzola dove and snagged a one-out liner as the defense was pulled in.

“Coach has been running me a lot at third base lately,” Terzola said. “And at third base, you kind of got to be more ready for that kind of stuff. So I felt like, you know, I'm in and I just played like a third baseman and he put me in the right spot and I made a good play.”

Terzola also ended the game with a leaping catch of a line drive off the bat of Allen. He said there wasn’t time to think about the play.

“There's so much adrenaline, It's 1-0, top of the seventh,” Terzola said. “We're about to beat a good team with the guy who's shoving and that guy who's shoving is at the plate. It's like, you know, we just want to get him out. So, he hits one and I don't even know what happened.”

Despite just scoring one run, Carmichael felt like Hoban got good at-bats all game and made contact more than most teams have been able to against Allen, striking out just four times in six innings. It was all part of the Knights’ plan against the flamethrowing Wright State commit.

“The approach is, we crank the (pitching) machine up and we have the math all down of what 94 miles an hour looks like,” Carmichael said. “And we really just try to keep it simple. We tried to stay really short and hit the top of the baseball because when you got a guy that throws as hard and as well as he does, it feels like the ball is rising on you but it's not really. So we just literally tried to hit the top of the baseball and guys stuck to the approach.”

The Knights move onto next week’s district semifinals at Canton’s Thurman Munson Memorial Stadium.

For a team that has been in the state championship game two years in a row in Division II, with a state title to their name in 2021, the Knights feel primed for another deep run despite the step up to Division I this year.

“I mean, that's Knights baseball,” Shimmel said. “We're a championship team, and we expect to go far in the tournament. We’re just gonna take it game by game, and hopefully we're gonna make it far.”