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By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
SPRINGFIELD – For the first time in program history, Gainesville baseball is off to the Final Four.
Andrew Hambelton and Jake Leeker combined to throw a three-hitter, Wyatt Alms hit the go-ahead home run and the Bulldogs continued their historic season with a 2-1 victory over Marionville in a Class 2 quarterfinal on Wednesday night at Parkview High School.
Gainesville (22-6) will face Portageville (30-3) at 10 a.m. Monday at U.S. Ballpark in Ozark – an entirely new experience for athletes at a school where playoff runs like this are few and far between.
The Bulldogs had not reached the state semifinals in any team sport since 2005, when they finished third in girls basketball. A Gainesville boys team had not made it this far since their basketball squad reached the 1957 Final Four – a 65-year drought that is now a thing of the past.
“It means everything to us,” Leeker said. “We want to be the best team in Gainesville history. Now I think we can say that we are.”
While athletes at other schools might hear Final Four war stories from their older siblings, parents or alumni, none of the Bulldogs have heard much about the experience of playing for a state title.
“Completely new – and nobody we’ve really talked to,” Leeker said. “We’ve had a few teams around us go to the Final Four, but we don’t like them. So we don’t really talk to them.”
Well, Gainesville will be talking about this accomplishment for years to come.
“This is awesome,” Bulldogs coach Blake Hobbs said. “This is awesome. There’s not much more than that. This is awesome.”
The Bulldogs made history by picking up a much-sought and hard-fought revenge victory over the defending state champions, who ended their season in the state quarterfinals one year ago.
Moments after Marionville’s 2-0 win last spring, the Bulldogs began preparing for the rematch.
“We wanted to beat them,” Leeker said. “We were hoping we were going to see them all year.”
When each team won their sectional on Monday, the stage was finally set.
“I told the boys ‘You got revenge. You guys need to get revenge right here. They’re ready for you guys,’” Hobbs said. “That’s a great time right there. They’ve only lost two games going into the (playoffs). I knew we had to give everything we’ve got. I knew we had to throw strikes. But the boys were hungry. They knew what they needed to do. They knew they needed to step up.”
And they did – with a notable playoff performer coming through with another big hit.
Alms, who hit a walk-off two-run home run in the 12th inning of last year’s district title game, launched a two-run bomb in the third inning to turn an early 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 Gainesville lead.
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“I was just looking to hit the ball hard,” Alms said. “We had a runner on. I was just looking to create something. The pitch was low and I was just looking to do some damage.”
Hobbs said Alms, who bats ninth in the batting order, was hitting just .208 going into the game. But the timely home run represented a fundamental difference between this year’s team and last year’s group, which struggled at times to have a player make a big play when it was needed.
“This year, 100 percent, everybody is stepping up,” Hobbs said.
Hambelton allowed just three hits over four-plus innings of work, striking out five and allowing a second-inning RBI single by Marionville pitcher Wyley Brown.
When Hambelton opened the fifth inning by walking a batter and hitting another, Leeker came out of the bullpen and retired the next three Marionville hitters to hold Gainesville’s one-run lead.
“You saw, in my opinion, two No. 1 (pitchers) right there,” Hobbs said. “Andrew Hambelton, just being a sophomore, with him on the mound it’s my best defense — by far. When he was starting to get in trouble, I knew in my head ‘This offense is way too good.’ I’m immediately going to Jake Leeker. Jake, being as effective as he is, I know he was going to be able to shut the door right away and do exactly what he needed to do.”
Leeker also worked out of a jam in the sixth inning.
After the Comets got runners on second and third with one out, Leeker got the next two batters to pop out to the second baseman and ground out to end the threat.
He didn’t allow a hit in any of the three innings he pitched.
“Just have to compete,” Leeker said. “Just try to be a Bulldog and try to do whatever you can do to win.”
Brown countered with a valiant effort for Marionville (22-3), striking out 11 across six innings of two-hit work.
He briefly faltered in the fifth inning, walking the bases loaded with nobody out. But following a mound visit from coach Alex Weathermon, Brown struck out the next three batters to keep it 2-1.
He added a 1-2-3 sixth inning to keep the Comets within striking distance, but they never struck.
“Wyley threw a great, great, great game,” Weathermon said. “He was a competitor on the mound. He challenged guys at the plate. Very, very proud of him and what he did. I told him if one swing by a nine-hole beats us, sometimes that’s baseball. We don’t like it and we definitely don’t want to live with it, but he executed all game. Offensively, we just couldn’t get things rolling a whole lot for him. We had our opportunities. Timely hitting is just one of those things in baseball that will win you championships.”
Alms knows a thing or two about that.
“That’s a solid team that we just played,” Alms said. “They didn’t make many mistakes that game. The few they did, I feel like we did convert on. That’s just the difference in the game right there.”
The loss marked the end of Weathermon’s tenure at his alma mater, as the former Marionville standout has accepted the head coaching position at Lebanon for the 2023 campaign.
Weathermon, who led the Comets to the school’s first state title in his first season as a head coach, went 45-9 with two district championships in two years at the helm.
“It just means the world for people letting me come here and do what I did and give me a great start to my head coaching career,” Weathermon said. “The town is wonderful. The next person who comes here is going to be very lucky.”
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, are one win away from locking up the best finish of any sports team in school history. None of Gainesville’s five previous Final Four teams have reached a state title game.
Should they make it past fourth-ranked Portageville, the No. 9 Bulldogs will face either No. 1 Russellville (27-4) or No. 10 Plattsburg (28-8) for the championship on Tuesday.
By simply making it to Ozark, they’ve already established themselves as the best baseball team in Gainesville history. Now they have a chance to further distance themselves from the pack.
“It feels amazing,” Alms said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since last year since this happened. It’s been a really exciting season leading up to this. I was just so ready for this moment and it feels awesome.”
MARIONVILLE (22-3) 010 000 0 — 1
GAINESVILLE (22-6) 002 000 x — 2
