They had to withstand a late rally that was spurred by a couple of crucial errors, but in the end, the Ozark Tigers (16-8) had just enough to notch a 4-3 victory over the 6-seed Parkview Vikings (8-21) in the opening round of the Class 5, District 11 tournament on Saturday in Nixa.
The No. 3 seeded Tigers, who steamrolled Parkview by a final of 10-0 back on March 20, held a solid 4-0 lead after four innings of play and saw starter Chuck Hill having his way with the Vikings’ hitters.
Hill, who has been the No. 3 starter for head coach Mike Essick’s team throughout the 2017 campaign, managed to retire the first eight hitters he faced and looked virtually unhittable in the early going.
“That’s what we hoped for,” Essick said of Hill’s performance. “This is how we’re gonna stack up our pitching and it’s what we wanted to do.”
But in the top of the fifth, things started to get interesting. With the bases loaded and one out, Parkview shortstop Bowin Davisson stepped up to the plate with the mindset of getting at least one run in to chip into the deficit.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
By the time his at-bat concluded, both teams were staring at a 4-3 game as Davisson smacked a grounder to third that was booted. The ball skipped past and into the outfield and eluded the left fielder letting all three Parkview baserunners to touch home plate and giving the Vikings life.
Seeing a rather significant lead nearly evaporate brought all-too-familiar memories back for Essick, who has seen his squad rehearse that act on many occasions this season.
“That’s been our story all year long,” said Essick. “We have witnessed that 50 percent of the time this season. We’ve begged, we’ve pleaded, we’ve shouted, they’ve got to figure it out. This team is too good to do that.”
More drama and intrigue was added in the top of the seventh as Parkview had a runner on first with two outs and second baseman Christian Willers at the dish. Willers managed to bloop a ball into short center field that seemed destined to find the grass, but junior Curt Gracey played the role of hero – diving forward to catch the final out and save extra bases.
“Him and Parker [Hanks] just let a ball drop in left center [earlier], so it was nice to see him get a little more aggressive there, and come in to get a ball and catch it,” Essick added of Gracey. “That’s always nice to see.”
Things could have been drastically different for the Vikings if it weren’t for several miscues on the bases and in the field. Two fielding errors in the bottom of the second inning led to the first three runs of the game for the Tigers, while an error by Parkview’s starting pitcher in the fourth helped add another run to Ozark’s total.
In addition, Parkview fell victim to a pair of pickoffs that thwarted scoring opportunities for a Vikings club that was searching for its first district tournament win in 13 years.
“It usually always comes back to one or two plays in the game and that will cost us,” Parkview head coach Beau Davis said. “We’ve been saying all year long that we’re like a five or six inning team. There’s always one inning where we’ll have some miscues or we won’t be able to execute some simple plays, and it ends up costing us in the end.”
Hill picked up the win for Ozark by throwing six innings of four-hit baseball and striking out six. In the loss, Parkview’s Nick Young went the distance – surrendering five hits, striking out two and walking none.
The Tigers advance to take on No. 2 seed Glendale (22-7) in semifinal action on Monday at 6:30 p.m.
