Brady Rice put the team on his back last week, pitching seven innings of one-run baseball and striking out 11 as the Eagles topped Batavia 3-1 to win their first district title since 1991. The Eagles will face Delaware Buckeye Valley in a Division II regional semifinal at 5 p.m. Thursday in Mason.
Rice leads the Southwestern Buckeye League in wins (seven) and strikeouts (96) while also having driven in more runs (31) than anyone else.
“I think Brady Rice has probably been our workhorse at times,” Ebright said. “I think he’s 7-2 right now. We’ve got a couple other kids — Carson Brower, Reid Tintsman, Brady Davis — who have had good years throwing for us. We try not to give extra outs to people, and I think we we’ve done a pretty good job of throwing strikes.”
Brower is 6-0 with a 3.09 ERA while Davis is 3-0 with a 0.36 ERA and Tinstman is 1-1 with a 2.43 ERA.
Theo Winnings, a senior batting .406 with 11 doubles and 30 runs scored, and Brock Ebright, a junior batting .391 with 10 doubles and 31 runs, have also been major cogs in the offense.
Eaton’s opponent,, Buckeye Valley, handled Utica 12-5 to start the tournament but needed one-run victories to get through the rest of the district, taking down Marengo Highland 2-1 then beating Johnstown 5-4 in 10 innings.
“We just talk about playing in the moment,” Bob Ebright said. “I think the biggest thing is hopefully every single time we go out, we play one of our better games and understand if we play well, we’ll give ourselves an opportunity.
“We understand the competition is very good at this point and understand that they’re not going to make as many mistakes as maybe some of the other teams on your schedule at times, and we understand that we have to execute what we do more than probably throughout other games throughout the season. So we’ll just try to be a little bit more precise and execute what we do.”
Badin plays Cleves Taylor at 2 p.m. Thursday in the other D-II regional semifinal in Mason with the winner playing Eaton or Buckeye Valley at 5 p.m. Friday in the regional final.
Badin (24-6) has won eight in a row and is the GLC Co-Ed champs. It has won three postseason games by a combined score of 22-1 but edged Tippecanoe 1-0 in the district final.
Brycen Fox is second in the league with a .435 batting average while Landyn Vidourek is fifth at .395 and Jimmy Nugent is second in RBIs with 32. Senior Eric Rawlings is 9-0 with a 0.59 ERA, and he has struck out 58.
Taylor (19-8) got this far by knocking off Chaminade Julienne in the district final. Senior Cayden Heller doubled and tripled while driving in five runs in the 8-3 victory. Johnny Kearns led the Cincinnati Hills League in wins (7) and was second in strikeouts (52) while outfielder Mark Snowden led the league with 31 RBIs.
Here’s a look at other regional baseball matchups:
Division I
Fairfield vs. Cincinnati Moeller, 2 p.m. Thursday, Midland Baseball Complex in Batavia.
Senior outfielder John Rodriguez leads Fairfield with a .388 batting average while classmate Kemper Murray is hitting .340. Junior Josh Isaacs tops the team with 23 RBIs while Louisville-bound senior Kayden Campbell is 4-1 with 33 strikeouts and a 2.13 ERA. Sophomore Aaron England is 4-2 with 80 strikeouts (second in the GMC) and a 1.48 ERA.
Moeller (28-2) won the GCL South and has outscored opponents 226-59. It has won 10 games in a row.
Mason vs. Lebanon, 5 p.m. Thursday, Midland Baseball Complex in Batavia.
Lebanon (20-11) reached the regional semifinals for the first time on the strength of their pitching. It has allowed three hits and no runs in four tournament games with senior Parker Dillhoff and junior Colton Hartman leading the way. Dillhoff struck out 14 in the district final win over Butler.
Mason (25-4) won the GMC with a 17-1 mark in conference play, and the Comets have outscored their three postseason opponents 13-0. They have the league’s top pitcher in senior Brenden Garuda, who is 8-0 with a 1.16 ERA and 98 strikeouts. He also leads the team with 36 hits.
Regional final: Friday at 5
Division IV
Fort Loramie vs. Fairfield Christian, 5 p.m. Thursday, Princeton High School
The Redskins (23-6) advanced to the regional tournament for the second consecutive year by shutting out Catholic Central 8-0 last week. The Shelby County Athletic League co-champs have four first-team all-league honorees, including standout pitcher Derek Meyer, who shut down the Fighting Irish in the district final on five hits. They have won eight in a row since losing to Chaminade Julienne 3-1 on May 7.
Fort Loramie has outscored the opposition 26-1 so far in the tournament.
Fairfield Christian advanced to its first regional semifinal with a 7-5 win over East Knox.
Fort Loramie or Fairfield Christian will play Southeastern or Russia, who play at 2 p.m. Thursday, in the regional final at 5 p.m. Friday.
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