MHS baseball: Victory slips away; season ends at home regional
Sports reporter
In a hard-fought, well-played regional baseball game, the Hillsboro Trojans defeated the Marion High School Warriors, 6-4
The Warriors went into the game Monday as the seven seed and host of the tournament.
The Trojans, with nine victories on the season, were the two seed.
Although five seeds separated the two schools, they were even going into the game.
Each school had won two games against the other during the season, and no team won by more than four runs.
HHS kept up the trend of the visiting team winning, defeating Marion on its home field for the third time this season.
The Warriors actually had a 3-1 lead in the fourth inning, but two runs in the fourth and three in fifth for Hillsboro, gave the Trojans the victory.
Marion nearly got on the board two batters into the game, after senior shortstop Calvin Jeffrey singled and later charged toward home plate after a Zan Fine double.
However, the Trojans executed a perfect relay throw to nail Jeffrey at the plate and keep the score at zeros.
It remained that way until Hillsboro's only senior, outfielder Mitchell Koop, nailed an RBI-double into the gap in the bottom of the second inning for the first run of the game.
The score remained the same until the Warriors' bats woke up in the top of the fourth.
Adam Maag led off with a walk and stole second base before Marshall Ragland also drew a walk.
Two outs later, Jeffrey came to the plate with runners on second and third and two outs.
With first base open HHS head coach Phil Oelke elected to intentionally walk Jeffrey for the second time this season.
Earlier in the year it paid off, but not this time.
Fine took the intentional walk to Jeffrey personally, and delivered a single, scoring Maag and tying the game.
Sophomore Wil Case then came up and deliver a line-drive single into right field, brining the MHS crowd to its feet and the lead to 3-1.
Two Marion errors in the bottom of the fourth and some timely hitting for Hillsboro tied the game at three.
Starting pitcher Brian Fruechting retired Daniel Jost on a ground out with a runner on third to leave the scored tied a three.
Trojan pitcher Isaac Leihy did his best to change that, leading off the bottom of the fifth with a double.
Koop then made sure it would not be his final game, singling in another run to give Hillsboro the lead again.
Jacob Fish delivered an RBI-single of his own, and Chris Couts' sacrifice bunt scored the sixth and final run for the Trojans.
Jeffrey, who finished his final game going 3-3 with two runs scored, ended up on third base with one out in the sixth after hitting a double combined with an error by the Trojans.
Case recorded his third RBI of the game with a ground out, but it was all the Warriors could muster.
Leihy finished off his complete game by setting down the Warriors 1-2-3 in the seventh.
The Trojans moved on to play Halstead Tuesday in the semifinals.
The Warriors' season came to an end with a 6-13 record, one year after winning just one game.
MHS will lose seniors Jeffrey and Fine to graduation.
