By Stephen Buus (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Greenfield—The Greenfield Wildcats rode the arm of junior Gage Burns to the Class 1 District 6 championship, as they upset top-seeded Exeter 7-0 Wednesday at Jerry Ruark Field.
Burns pitched a complete game four-hitter, with five strikeouts and no walks. He said his two-seam fastball and curveball were most effective.
“I told him, that’s what a [Number] One does,” said Greenfield coach Nick Engleman. “I just told him to go get guys out, and we made great plays behind him. Yeah, he’s a little bit of a strikeout pitcher, but he’s got some movement so when his stuff is not good, he’s still able to get guys out. The way we field the ball behind him makes it real easy and keeps his pitch count down. I think he finished in the low 80s for seven innings.”
Burns was aided by batterymate Sawyer Dodd, who not only drove in Burns twice in the first three innings, but also threw out two Tiger runners at third base.
Burns led off the game with a single to left field, stole second, took third on Trenton Wilson’s grounder, and scored on Dodd’s sacrifice fly to center. Two innings later, Burns reached on a one-out error, stole two bases and scored on Dodd’s double up the middle.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Burns said, “Having Sawyer behind me, I can always count on him to hit me in.”
The Wildcats made it 3-0 in the fifth as Brayton Ipock singled with one out, stole two bags and came home as Exeter catcher Hank Woods’ throw to third was high.
In the sixth, Greenfield broke the game open with three runs. Dodd drew a walk to lead off, Colin White beat out an infield hit, and Caden Sims tripled to the right field corner to score Dodd and White. Sims came home off another missed pickoff at third base.
The final Wildcat run came in the seventh. After Exeter walked the bases loaded, Wilson scored on a grounder by Sims.
Greenfield celebrated its first district title since 2015, when the seniors were freshmen.
Engleman said, “I’ve told these kids from day one, we’re good enough defensively and we’re gonna be good enough with the stick, we’ve just got to stay mentally focused. That was the thing, can they stay focused and we’ve done it.”
“I was glad we got it done after two years of coming up short,” said Burns. “We finally got ‘em this year.”
For Exeter coach Matt Tripp, the berth in the finals was still a marked improvement for a program which reached double-digit wins for the first time in recent memory.
“They played very hard,” Tripp said.
“We’ve had an excellent season. This is my second year in the program. When I took over, we had a two-win season, zero-win season, one-win season. Last year we were 9-12. We’re 14-9 after tonight so we’re definitely going in the right direction.
“We’ve done much better batting-wise. We’re probably around .320 as a team. My first year, fall and spring, I had starters that batted .000 the entire season. My lowest batter now is around .220. Just the quality of player I’m able to put out now is slowly improving.”
Jared Alverson led the Tigers with two hits, but was thrown out twice at third base by Dodd.
Greenfield will host Dora in the sectional round on Monday. Englemen believes the home field advantage will be important for his team.
“Most kids at the high school level aren’t equipped for the long bus ride,” said Engleman. “But we’ve still got to come in and stay focused and play one pitch at a time. If we come out and play like we did tonight, we’re gonna put ourselves in a good position to win.
Greenfield (11-12) 7 6 1
Exeter (14-9) 0 4 3
Gage Burns & Sawyer Dodd; Austin Rayburn, Jacob Foster (6), Jared Alverson (7) & Hank Woods
Hits: Greenfield—Burns, Dodd (2B), Colin White, Caden Sims (3B), Dawson Wimer, Brayton Ipock. Exeter—Alverson 2, Rayburn, Woods.
