By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray should maybe be booking a flight to Vegas in the near future – or at least buying a lottery ticket.
As the only top five Ninth Region baseball team to draw into the bottom bracket – with the other four in the top bracket – Gray’s team got to run-rule St. Henry’s young Crusaders, 15-5, in a first-round Ninth Region opener Monday in five innings.
And he got his best starter, Chase Flaherty (10-1), out of the game in the third inning after just 50 pitches. Flaherty will be fine now to come back in the championship game Thursday should the Tigers get there.
“Everybody kept saying “Good draw, good draw,” Gray said after the 10-run opening win. “But you’ve got to take care of business.”
Business taken care of. When Beechwood needed two runs to get to 15-5 in five innings and get out of here, the Tigers did just that.
“I think all coaches up here know that at this time of year, you’ll do anything to save pitching,” Gray said. Which is why getting this over in five innings mattered. “I wanted to get off the field as quick as I could.”
But then when St. Henry rallied for three runs in the fourth to make it 13-5, “I thought to myself, ‘This is backfiring.’ “
Then never mind. Reliever Branton Stiles kept the Crusaders at bay and the Tigers added on a game-ending final two runs. Not that any of this was a surprise. Beechwood won the regular season game over St. Henry, 8-0.
Nor was the way this one started anything but an effective argument for the KHSAA not to advance the district runners-up to the regional tournaments. Giving up 13 runs on just four hits in the first two innings that saw Beechwood bat around twice, the 36th district runner-up Crusaders surrendered three bases on balls with a hit batsman, committed a pair of errors and gave up three stolen bases in a seven-run first inning.
And then they came back to nearly duplicate that in a six-run second that featured three bases on balls – or was it four? – with only a missed call as Tyler Fryman slid into third base and was mercifully called out in a game that had reached 13-1.
The only question in the third inning seemed to be how long would Beechwood allow Flaherty to pitch before yanking him before he hit 76 pitches so he could come back Thursday.
Give the Crusaders credit, they hung in there. And still they got run-ruled. As for Beechwood, the Tigers need just one win over the Conner-NewCath winner to get back to the finals. This season, Beechwood has beaten both by a combined 17-6 score (Conner 5-2, NewCath 12-4).
“Maybe I will go to Vegas,” Gray kidded. But first there are a couple more trips to Florence starting with Wednesday’s at 8 p.m.
SCORING SUMMARY
ST. HENRY 1 0 1 2 0—5 3 5
BEECHWOOD 6 7 0 0 2—15 7 1
WP: Flaherty (10-1) LP: Lubert
Hitters: Fryman double, 2 RBI; Flaherty 3 runs scored; Cottongim 2-3, triple, 3 RBI.