By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
It was over.
Fans were heading to the exits or getting ready to go. This sportswriter was figuring out his questions for a surprising St. Henry team about to snatch the All “A” Regional Baseball title from Beechwood’s favored Tigers on a windy Monday night in Florence.
It was 4-1, top of the seventh inning. St. Henry’s Crusaders, after losing their first five games, were on the way to their fourth straight – and far most important – win in a comeback season.
Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray congratulates his Tigers for the come-from-behind win. That’s grand slam-hitting Carson Welch at the far left.
OK, so it would get to 4-2, but no problem. Beechwood’s Cameron Boyd was due, after all, he led the state in home runs last year. So that double and even the run he scored to get things going wouldn’t change much. The Tigers had already left 10 on base. And there were two outs. And a 2-2 count on batter Landon Johnson. Just one more strike. Maybe just one more pitch.
But that strike never came. Johnson, who knocked in Boyd, was now on third. Shawn Sowder, who doubled, was on second. Torin O’Shea walked so now it was bases loaded, still two outs, and sophomore catcher Carson Welch, who had replaced Mason Preston in the fifth when Preston got dinged with a foul ball, was up.
Just one more out. That’s all it would take. Just one more.
And then Welch got another inside fast ball. “I didn’t handle it well the first time,” Welch said. And uh oh, “I thought I got jammed,” he said.
He certainly didn’t get all of it. A fly ball, maybe? “I thought I popped out,” Carson said of the pitch from reliever Nick Webster Browning, who had come in from shortstop for the final two innings.
But as he rounded first, Welch realized all he could hear were the deafening screams from the Beechwood dugout and fans. Maybe he’d better pick it up, he told himself, he could he be looking at a double.
And then he saw the ump at first give that circular wave. A home run? A grand slam home run? From trailing 4-2 to leading 6-4 in one two-out swing of the bat? And no one left on base?
Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray empathizes with St. Henry’s Greg Pass in the handshake line.
“I was just trying to put it in the gap,” Welch said. Turns out the gap he put it into was between the parking lot and the construction area behind the scoreboard. “It just felt like a dream, honestly.”
Or a nightmare. By the time that third out came, Beechwood had scored nine runs for a 10-4 lead. “That’s what impressed me,” Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray said, the Tigers didn’t stop scoring after the grand slam. Boyd would come back for a second double in the seventh.
In the handshake line, Gray hugged St. Henry Coach Greg Pass and stopped for a long conversation. “I want to win,” he said, but looking at the loss, all he could do was feel for the Crusaders like starter Luke Keiper, the senior lefty whose change of speeds and location kept the Tiger hitters off-balance for five innings.
“I feel for that kid,” Gray said, “he did a great job.” So did Carson Shea, whose two hits drove in three early runs that looked like they would stand up . . . until that other Carson came along.
“We didn’t quit,” Gray said, “we didn’t freak out down three in the seventh.”
“The game wasn’t over yet,” Welch said, echoing the great thought of another catcher, one named Yogi, whose basic truism was never more validated than here in front of 300 or so stunned fans at Thomas More Stadium.
It really isn’t over until . . . well, until it’s over, Yogi famously said.
St. Henry Coach Greg Pass in a meeting on the mound with his Crusaders (Photos by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)
And now it was. Because Carson Welch told himself it wasn’t over.
And here was Welch, talking about how this “was definitely the best decision I ever made, to come to Beechwood,” said the Union resident and former Ryle student who now drives to Fort Mitchell every day to school.
NOTED: Winning pitcher, sophomore Chase Flaherty, who threw five scoreless innings, has been back less than three weeks, Gray said, after recovering from his injuries suffered in the state championship football game where he was the Tigers’ top running back . . . the football player he replaced, senior Mitchell Berger, who had knee surgery in the regular season and would be Beechwood’s top pitcher were he healthy, is in uniform and not limping but he will not be back, Gray says. “It just doesn’t make sense,” Gray said of taking a chance with Berger’s rehabbing knee. “Do we need him? Absolutely,” he says, “a guy with a 93-miles-per-hour fast ball.” But they’re not going to have him . . . the win sends Beechwood into a head-to-head game against the 10th Region All “A” winner for the right to go downstate for a final eight finish. “Great experience for our young team,” Gray said.
BEECHWOOD (7-1) 10 10 0
ST. HENRY (3-6) 4 7 3
WP: Chase Flaherty (1-0)
LP: Nick Webster Browning (0-3)
