By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
After a marathon championship game and a hard-earned 14-11 victory over rival Mt. Vernon, Aurora baseball coach James Hoffman acknowledged that the district title his Houn’ Dawgs earned on Tuesday at Seneca was particularly special.
“The other ones are all awesome just because of what we knew we were going to accomplish,” Hoffman said. “This one, if you had told me we were going to be district champions at the start of this year, I probably would have laughed at you, with our youth and one of our big arms unable to throw due to injury.”
But there was Aurora, which entered the Class 4 District 11 tournament as the fourth seed among six teams––with a losing record before Saturday––hoisting another first-place plaque on Tuesday evening. Now the Houn’ Dawgs, who improved to 14-12 with their third straight win, will advance to the state sectional round.
On Saturday, when Aurora opened with a 4-3 win over fifth seed East Newton, Hoffman told his players that the words “resiliency” and “relentlessness” would define the tournament for them. He was proved prophetic on Tuesday in the finale.
Aurora jumped out to a 4-0 lead against third seed Mt. Vernon (17-11), which entered the day on a six-game winning streak. The Mountaineers then erupted for six runs in the bottom of the fourth inning––sending 10 hitters to the plate––to take the lead and every bit of momentum.
But the Houn’ Dawgs were resilient, and then they were relentless. Aurora’s first nine hitters in the top of the fifth reached safely, and Aurora batted 14 before it was over, chasing away two pitchers in the process. More importantly, they exploded for nine runs to build a 13-6 advantage. There was a hit batsman, a throwing error and a walk. There were also at least six infield hits, including a rare bunt for a double by senior Heath Hoffman, who managed to bunt beyond a charging defense and then turned on the jets when the Mountaineers left second base open. Max Holland added a bases loaded triple that rolled to the left field fence.
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“It’s just crazy,” Hoffman said. “We were putting bunts down left and right and they couldn’t respond, they couldn’t execute on defense and our guys just kept pouring it on.”
“I don’t even know how many balls we hit out of the infield in that time,” he said. “I can guarantee you we’ve bunted more times this year than we have my entire time at Aurora. Maybe in this game.”
Hoffman, who usually doesn’t hold a meeting between innings, had called his players together before the top of the fifth and said, “give me baserunners, put me in a position to score us runs with you guys executing and we’re going to be right back in this thing.”
“I was like do not give up on us, do not give up on your teammates,” he said. “I don’t know if they listened or not but it worked.”
The game was still far from over at that point, though. Mt. Vernon scored once in the bottom half of the fifth; Aurora’s Carsen Gilliam then singled in a run in the top of the sixth to make it 14-7. The Mountaineers added two more in the bottom of the sixth. And then in the seventh they loaded the bases; it was 14-10 after a sacrifice fly from Sean Raucher, and 14-11 after a line-drive single by Brayden Jameson. That brought the tying run to the plate with two outs, but a deep fly out ended it.
“We didn’t play clean, they didn’t play clean,” Hoffman said. “It wasn’t a beautiful game, but it was a freaking good one.”
“Any time you get to keep playing while other teams are at home is pretty special,” he said. “For these guys especially, as young as we are. We’ve got two seniors and they’re bringing everybody else back for next year.”
