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By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
AURORA – The Class 1 District 5 championship game was supposed to be played in Halfway, until heavy storms swept through the region and rendered the host school’s field unplayable.
The champions soaked the replacement field, too.
Wyatt Dennis threw six solid innings to lead Weaubleau to a 3-1 victory over Dadeville on Thursday night at Aurora High School, clinching a third straight district title for the Tigers.
They celebrated by dumping the team’s water cooler on unsuspecting head coach Chad Foster.
“It may be the first time I’ve had one of those, actually,” Foster said. “It feels good right now.”
The hard-fought victory left the entire Weaubleau roster feeling good as they head into the state tournament. They will travel to the home of third-ranked St. Elizabeth for a sectional on Monday.
It will be the second consecutive year the Tigers (17-3) and Hornets (14-6) meet in the opening round of the state playoffs, as the Hornets ended Weaubleau’s season en route to a third consecutive appearance in the Class 1 championship game last spring.
“They’re going to be really good in every aspect of the game,” Foster said. “We’re just going to have to prepare here the next few days. We’ll go with the plan and try to execute and see what happens. They’re extremely well-coached. Have been for years and years. It’s going to be tough, but we’re going to go give it our best shot.”
Weaubleau earned that opportunity thanks in large part to Dennis, who outdueled Dadeville starter Caden Farmer, and the defense who was nearly perfect behind him.
Largely inducing groundouts, Dennis retired the first seven batters he saw before Caleb Walker reached on a throwing error in the bottom of the third. But Dennis rebounded to end the threat and allowed just three hits across six innings, only one of which went for extra bases.
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“He does a good job keeping the ball down and hitting spots,” Foster said. “He keeps the ball out of the middle of the plate. He’s a ground ball guy. He gets a lot of ground balls.”
After Dennis threw a 1-2-3 first inning, the Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the frame.
Leadoff batter Zach Brown was hit by a pitch, stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch. The next batter, Dawson Stewart, knocked a single up the middle to bring him home.
The Tigers thought they had doubled the lead when Lee Lambeth hit a two-out single to the outfield and Stewart ran into the third baseman as he rounded the bag. The Bearcats threw Stewart out at the plate, though Foster unsuccessfully argued for an interference call.
The swing could have been demoralizing, but Dennis threw another 1-2-3 inning in the second. He induced two groundouts and got another Dadeville batter to pop out to the first baseman.
“They were doing great,” Dennis said of his defense. “I was just throwing strikes. They were hitting them straight to our guys and they were just making plays.”
Brown added an RBI single in the bottom of the second to make it 2-0 Weaubleau.
Farmer settled into a rhythm after that, retiring seven consecutive batters across the second, third and fourth innings. He added an RBI double in the top of the fourth to cut the deficit to 2-1.
Weaubleau’s Blane Durnell countered with an RBI single to restore the two-run lead in the fifth.
But those were the only runs the Tigers mustered against Farmer, who nearly neutralized an offense that has posted double-digit run totals in 11 of its 18 games.
“I feel like we didn’t swing very well tonight,” Foster said. “We’ve had games where we just absolutely swung it lights-out and tonight wasn’t one of those, but it’s good enough to win. We’re in survive-and-advance mode right now and it worked out tonight.”
Brown finished 2-for-2, with an RBI and two runs scored.
Freshman Clayton Ginnings picked up the save by striking out three of the four batters he saw in the seventh inning. Ginnings, who already tops out at an 80 mile-per-hour fastball, threw one of his pitches through the webbing of the catcher’s mitt while warming up in the bullpen.
“The boys made sure to show me that – which is a cool deal, I guess,” Foster said. “He’s a freshman and I think he’s got big things ahead of him. He’s got a good, live arm and he’s played a lot of baseball. We were comfortable putting him in that position tonight.”
Ginnings was in sixth grade when the Tigers reached the Final Four for the first time in school history, touching off their run of district titles. Seniors on this year’s team were freshmen then.
“I think we’ve built something here and we’re keeping it going,” Foster said. “It’s awesome.”
DADEVILLE (11-10) 000 100 0 — 1
WEAUBLEAU (17-3) 110 010 x — 3
