By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The eight seniors on the Webb City baseball team aren’t done with high school just yet.
Senior Hunter Shull clubbed a two-run double and junior Luke Beverlin turned in another strong start on the mound as the Cardinals knocked off Carl Junction 3-1 on Monday in the Class 5 District 7 championship at Missouri Southern State University to advance to the quarterfinal round next weekend.
“I’m super happy for all these seniors,” Webb City coach Andrew Doennig said. “They get to enjoy this thing. They’re out of school and they get a couple more days in the sun to practice baseball and keep living the dream for a little while so I’m happy for them.”
The Cardinals, 26-7, won their fourth district title in five seasons and extended their winning streak over the rival Bulldogs to 11 games, dating back to 2016. Webb City has now outscored Carl Junction 97-18 in that span.
And the Cardinals also continued their hot play of late––Monday’s victory was the team’s 11th in 12 games, and Webb City has held opponents to two runs or less in each of the victories.
Beverlin, a left-handed starter, cruised for most of Monday’s game. He retired the first 10 batters he faced and needed only 69 pitches to get through 6.1 innings, allowing just five hits and an earned run while striking out four. And when he needed help, the Webb City defense was happy to oblige.
A pair of Carl Junction singles in the top of the fourth put two runners on with one out. Beverlin got a strikeout for the second out, but then Carl Junction’s Deacon Endicott hit a grounder up the middle that appeared destined for center field. Cardinals second baseman Samuel Weller ranged to his right and made a diving stop, then threw out Endicott at first to end the inning and keep the Bulldogs off the scoreboard.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Shull’s double in the bottom of the second, meanwhile, proved to be all Webb City needed offensively. Senior Shaun Hunt led off the inning with a standup double, and senior Christian Brock drew a walk to put two runners on. Both had advanced into scoring position before Shull slugged a pitch to center field to score two.
“He had a big double last game and another today,” Doennig said. “He’s just a kid who gets it done however he can. He’ll go up there and get hit by a pitch, he’ll move the ball, he’ll bunt. A kid hung a curveball and he hit it in the gap. It’s what you ask them to do and he got it done today.”
The Cardinals made it 3-0 in the third after Andrew Young tripled over the center fielder and Mason Williams sacrificed to right.
A pair of doubles led to Carl Junction’s lone run in the top of the sixth––Cooper Vediz earned the RBI with a hit down the right field line––but Beverlin got two fly outs to strand Vediz at second. Beverlin exited with one out in the seventh after hitting a batter.
“It all starts on the mound; any team that’s going to have any type of success throughout the year and especially in the playoffs is going to start right there on the mound and that’s where it starts for us and ends for us right now,” Doennig said. “We’ve got really good hitters, we’ve got some guys having phenomenal years, but Luke Beverlin’s 9-0 and he’s been unbelievable this year for us and he continues to be. We’ve got four guys and we feel like any time we can roll those four guys out we’ve got a chance to win. Sammy (Weller) had an unbelievable play; he had two errors the last game and was kind of down on himself so it was awesome to see him make that diving play and get us out of the inning.”
The game ended on another heads-up play by the Webb City defense––a fly out to center and a quick throw to second to double off the runner.
Carl Junction, which dropped six games in a row in April, finished with an 18-17 record.
“We had a really tough schedule and really the only reason was to prepare us for a game like this, to give us a chance to be in a district championship game and compete in a district championship,” coach Phil Cook said. “We had a stretch there that was a gauntlet for us but it paid off in the end.”
“I don’t think any of these guys had played in a district championship yet,” Cook said. “They did a great job. Beverlin is a really fine left-handed pitcher, one of the best I’ve seen, really. We got outhit 6-5, a couple hits here and there. Defensively had a miscue or two but other than that it was a pretty clean game. It was a good high school baseball game and our kids should be proud.”
