“I jumped on a couple of grenades because I was playing a whole bunch of sophomores my first year and rubbed some people the wrong way,” Eaton said. “But I believed in that group.”
Time finally ran out on the Blue Devils against Cincinnati Christian. The Cougars scored twice in the top of the seventh and withstood Brookville’s final at-bat rally for a 4-2 victory to advance to Friday’s 5 p.m. final against Heath, a 7-2 winner over Cincinnati Country Day.
“We played together all of our lives,” senior catcher Kayde Baker said. “I knew we could do it. We built together for three years, came out senior year and had a run. A special team.”
Brookville (21-9) trailed 2-1 entering the late innings looking for a sixth walk-off win and a second in their past three games. But the Cougars scored on an infield single and an intentional rundown play for the second time to take a 4-1 lead in the seventh. With a runner on third and two outs, a runner on first broke for second before the pitch to provoke a rundown that led to the runner scoring from third.
“They’re a good baseball team, they make you beat yourself,” Eaton said. “We did that just enough to put us in a little bit too much of a hole.”
Braden Chambers singled and Baker walked to lead off the Brookville seventh. Then Nathan Waggoner popped up to shallow right field, and it appeared he would have a hit. But a sliding catch by the right fielder kept Baker and Chambers at first and second.
With two outs, Hunter Gray singled home Baker, but the Blue Devils’ season ended on the next pitch on an infield pop up.
Lane Willoughby and his defense kept the Blue Devils close. Willoughby allowed nine hits and three walks and struck out three.
“Willoughby was outstanding as always, not the strikeout numbers that he always has, but he pitched his butt off for our guys, and we played decent enough defense that gave us a chance there to have the tying run at the plate late,” Eaton said.
With a lot of traffic on the bases, two of the biggest plays were made by Baker when he threw out base stealers at second base and third base in successive innings.
“I’ve always been up to big moments,” Baker said. “I gotta help my team somehow.”
Cincinnati Christian starter Jackson Raby held Brookville to four hits, walked one and struck out five.
“Nothing overpowering, but he had really good command,” Eaton said. “He was able to dot up the outside corner consistently, and our guys just couldn’t get to that pitch to take it the other way. We battled in there. We just couldn’t quite get the barrel to the baseball because his location was outstanding.”
Eaton praised his team for preparing hard for the season, including early-morning workouts in February, and never complaining.
“They earned everything they got this year and getting this far,” he said. “Once the good group leaves, it’s to keep the standard, it’s to keep how we go about the day to day. Maybe not regional semifinal good every year, but to bring up the lows a little bit and keep the highs going even higher.”
In other regional games:
Cincinnati Moeller 4, Vandalia Butler 1: In Oxford, Moeller jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning of a Division I semifinal and avenged a 1-0 loss to Butler during the regular season.
Butler starter Hunter Richardson allowed two earned runs in five innings and left trailing 4-1. Butler (24-7) cut the lead to 2-1 in the fifth when Richardson led off with a walk and scored on a double play. The Aviators had seven hits but left nine runners on base.
Division IV: At Cincinnati Princeton, Russia moved a step closer to a third straight trip to state with a 6-2 win over Galion Northmor behind the two-hit pitching over 6 1/3 innings by Braylon Cordonnier.
The Raiders (26-4) will play Troy Christian (11-15), a 13-8 winner over Bradford. Camden Koukol had three hits and four RBIs to lead the Eagles. They have won four tournament games after losing the final eight games of the regular season.
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