Aurora won their first district title in 18 years on Thursday in a dramatic finish over Rogersville 3-2 on a walk-off hit, sending them to the Class 4 state championship tournament for the first time since 1998.
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With the ball game tied 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Aurora freshman Gage Singer stepped to the plate with one out and a runner on second base.
“I was just really trying to square up the ball, trying to move him and just hopefully something good would happen,” said Singer.
Something good did happen. Singer lifted the ball into the left-center field gap and drove in fellow underclassman Wyatt Sparks, delivering a walk-off district championship win.
“It was great,” said Sparks. “I was rounding third and I knew I was going to score. It was a great feeling.”
Singer was 0-4 before the walk-off single. In the fourth inning with runners on second and third, Singer ripped a ball to the right side but was robbed by the second baseman who made an incredible diving catch to end the inning. The walk-off RBI single negates all of that, though.
“You know, everybody talks about him being a freshman,” said head coach James Hoffman, “But the way he plays the game, he is not a freshman. He’s got better composure than a lot of seniors I’ve seen in big-time situations.”
Both teams pitched well and played good defense. A total of 19 base runners were left stranded throughout the game; Aurora stranded 13 runners and Rogersville stranded six. Aurora tallied 13 hits in the game despite only scratching across three runs.
“It’s just postseason baseball,” Hoffman said. “[Rogersville] made big pitches and made big plays. And we did the same when they had runners on. They did a good job of getting their leadoff guy on in almost every inning.”
Sparks, a sophomore, pitched all eight innings for the Houn’ Dawgs. He gave up an early run in the top of the first inning, but settled down and got better as the game went on. Sparks surrendered just three hits in the game and only one hit after the third inning.
“I was just trying to throw strikes the whole day and I tried to keep my pitch count down,” said Sparks. “I didn’t want it to get too high so I could go the whole game.”
“He was pretty dominant,” Hoffman said of his young pitcher. “You gotta give credit to Rogersville. They came out ready to hit, they came ready to attack the fastball and they put some good at-bats on him early. But I think after the fourth inning or fifth inning, he didn’t allow anything. He got more dialed in, more focused and more determined. And that’s the way he’s been all year.”
Aurora (25-3) will take on Big 8 Conference foe Carl Junction (26-7) in the sectional matchup on Tuesday, May 24. They split two games head-to-head this season.
“I expect it to be a dogfight again,” said Hoffman. “We could be 2-0 against them, they could be 2-0 against us and they know that as well as we do.”
But until Tuesday, Aurora will relish in this dramatic district championship win, their first since 1998.
“Only about two or three of these kids were alive the last time [Aurora] won a district title,” said Hoffman. “I’m so excited. This has been a long time coming for these kids and for this community and it’s big. It’s huge.
