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Aurora, the top-ranked team in the Ozone power rankings, came as close as you can get to losing in the Class 4, District 11 championship against Logan-Rogersville without actually seeing its season end.
But they were definitely staring elimination squarely in the face.
Down to their last out and their last strike when junior Matthew Miller gave them new life with a walk-off three-run homer that sent the Houn’ Dawgs past the Wildcats 3-1 in a dramatic contest that lived up to its billing as the battle of two of the area’s best teams.
“I’ve never hit a game-winning home run,” Miller said after the game. “It feels amazing. It was one of the best moments of my life. I definitely will not forget this moment.”
Before that moment the game had belonged to the starting pitchers.
Aurora’s Zac Shoemaker, part of an incredible staff whose collective ERA is under 1.0, allowed just a single hit but did allow a run on a fielder’s choice in the very first inning. No one expected that 1-0 margin to hold up for the entire game, but it did hold up until the very last out.
The reason? Logan-Rogersville starter Teagan Rambo was just as impressive. He too had allowed just one-hit until that fateful moment and it appeared his shut-out would hold up when he blew two-strikes past Miller with 2-out and 2-on in the last of the 7th.
“I was nervous,” Miller admitted. “I knew that I had been struggling all day but I just flushed it out and the nerves kinda went away with it.”
“I was taking deep breaths,” Miller recalled of his final at-bat. “The first strike was kind of high but I thought I could hit it so I swung real hard and missed. The same thing happened on the next pitch. I knew he’d been throwing fast balls when he had two-strikes though and when he threw it, it was a little bit out and I’d been working on hitting to the opposite field all year. So when I swung I put my foot out and hit it to the opposite field and it worked out for me.”
“Even if we weren’t so highly-touted anytime your season ends you’re going to feel upset,” Aurora head coach James Hoffman said of the Houn’ Dawgs as they faced the very real threat to the end of their 23-3 season.
“But for it to end up like it did today was pretty special. In my pre-game message we talked about it being a marathon and not a sprint. One bad inning isn’t gonna lose it. One good inning isn’t gonna win it. You’ve got to continue to battle all the way through to the end. Before the last inning I just told them about having a good approach and getting dialed in. I predicted exactly what was going to happen except I had the wrong player driving ‘em in. But I’ll take the heat for being wrong on that part of it.”
Aurora will have a full-week to savor the unlikely last-out win before taking on Monett in the Class 4 sectionals next week. It will certainly go down as one of the most memorable moments in Houn’ Dawg baseball history,and when asked where it ranks to him personally, Hoffman replied with a smile,” it’s number four on my list. Right behind the birth of my three sons. But it’s pretty close.”
