Throughout its postseason run, Shady Spring had tasted success thanks to solid work at the plate leading to some big innings.
Thursday night in the semifinals of the Little League 8-10 Baseball All-Star State Tournament, the decisive big inning belonged to Hedgesville.
Leading 6-4 in a tightly contested game, the visitors from Berkeley County strung together six hits, leading to eight runs for a 14-4 win in five innings.
“We did a really good job. (Shady Spring) had a good pitcher in the beginning that threw hard,” Hedgesville manager Dirk Webb said. “I thought we did a good job of working the count and when the opportunities presented themselves, we took advantage of them. We did an outstanding job at the plate with the bats.”
Prior to the outburst, neither team led by more than two runs.
Hedgesville took a 1-0 lead after the first inning before Shady Spring answered with a pair of runs in the top of the second inning.
Thanks to two runs in the bottom of the inning, the lead went back to Hedgesville, 3-2, but a nice running snag by Ryder Hall in right field helped Shady escape any further damage.
Coming off a six-RBI night Wednesday, Cash Boggs singled home a run in the third to tie the game. at 3-apiece. Boggs then moved up two bases on a wild pitch forcing a throw to third. When the throw could not be handled, Boggs raced home to give his team a 4-3 lead.
As it did all night, however, each time Shady took the lead, Hedgesville roared back immediately.
Run-scoring singles from Brody Roush and Tucker Webb, along with a sacrifice fly from Jacob Burns put Hedgesville back on top for good at 6-4.
Shady Spring threatened in the fourth and fifth innings, only to be stymied by solid defensive plays by Hedgesville to keep it off the board.
“Grayson (Walls) almost hits one over the fence in left and the kid makes a great play,” Shady Spring manager John Winkler said. “We hit some hard balls, line drives, and they made the plays they had to.”
Trailing by only two runs, Shady Spring was in an ideal position for a comeback in the sixth inning, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“We had our No. 2 hitter up. We were thinking if we can get out of (the fifth) inning, we had a good feeling about it,” Winkler said. “Every game we have had one of those big innings and I was thinking we were about to have one of those innings. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance.”
Roush and Webb started the breakout inning with back-to-back RBI-singles. Burns also singled home a run prior to Braxton Whittington sealing the win with a two-run double.
“It was the last inning that got us. We were throwing strikes and they got hot with the bat,” Winkler said. “Our pitcher was doing his job, the problem was, (Hedgesville) was doing their job. They were hitting it in the gaps.”
Although it was not the outcome that Shady Spring was looking for Thursday, the run to the state tournament semifinals was still quite impressive.
“I couldn’t be more proud of these kids. I just told them in the dugout, this is not (divided into) single-A, double-A, triple-A or quad-A,” Winkler explained. “We had about 60 kids show up for baseball this year and we don’t even have baseball fields. Thankfully Beckley lets us play with them. We finished in the top four teams in the state and we only had five teams in the minor league division. That is what we made our all-star team from.”
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Hedgesville and Bridgeport were left standing to battle in the championship game which was another back-and-forth nail-biter.
Scoring a run in the fifth to tie the game at 4-4, Hedgesville captured the state championship title when Roush singled home Ryker Hamlin with the game winner in the home half of the sixth inning.
Hedgesville will now play in the Tournament of Champions which will be held in Wilson, N.C. later this month.
