GROVE – A regional tournament that began with high hopes for Grove baseball ended with a sudden thud on Friday as the Ridgerunners were eliminated from the postseason after losses to Pryor and Collinsville.
The Ridgerunners had momentum to start the day after Gibson Russ’s two-run home run gave Grove (22-14) a 2-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth inning against Pryor.
The Ridgerunners then faced Collinsville in an elimination game. Grove had beaten the Cardinals twice in the regular season, but after taking a 4-3 lead with a pair of runs in the bottom of the third inning, the Ridgerunners were held to three hits and a walk over the final four innings by Collinsville starting pitcher Zach Guest.
The Cardinals got the tying run in the top of the sixth inning on a single by Christian Blevins. Craig Blevins then drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly to right field in the top of the seventh for the 5-4 win.
Collinsville will face Pryor needing to beat the Tigers twice to advance to the state tournament. The Tigers, who rallied to defeat Collinsville 8-5 in Thursday’s tournament opener, need one win to advance.
But for the Ridgerunners, a bounce-back season ended in disappointment.
“We had a good start,” head coach Bret Bouher said. “Gibson hit the home run and everything was looking for us.”
Things turned in the bottom of the fourth. Brennon Barth led off the inning with a bunt single and later stole second. With one out, Foster McCollough reached on an infield single that ticked off the glove of a lunging Russ near the mound, putting runners on the corners.
A single by Bradley Nixon tied the score at two, a strikeout followed, forcing in a run and loading the bases with two outs. That’s when Spencer Henson hit a bases-clearing double to the left centerfield gap, scoring three. Pryor would get another run-scoring double and a 7-2 before the inning ended.
“It just got away from us,” Bouher said. “They had a bunt single that the guy barely beat out and a base hit off the pitcher’s glove. Next thing you know a couple of walks and a hit later it’s a big inning for them.”
Russ would add a third RBI on a sacrifice fly in the seventh inning for the final margin after Pryor put the game away with three runs in the bottom of the sixth.
In the next game against Collinsville Russ struck again, hitting a bloop double with two outs in the bottom of the first. Erick Ryan and Kaden Livermore followed with walks to load the bases, and Jake Spychalski drove in two with a single to left field.
A pair of errors would help Collinsville tie the score in the top of the second. An RBI double by Braden Varner would give the Cardinals a 3-2 lead in the top of the third, but Grove would take advantage of three Collinsville errors to score twice in the bottom of the inning.
Ryan and Livermore started things with a single and a walk with two outs. Ryan would advance from first to third on a pair of errors on a pickoff play before scoring on a wild pitch. Livermore would advance to third when Spychalski’s fly ball to left field was dropped and would score the go-ahead on an infield single by Benny Steffenson.
But Guest would keep the Ridgerunners off the scoreboard the rest of the way, and the Cardinals would eventually rally to end Grove’s season.
“[Collinsville] made big plays when they needed to and that’s just about the end of it,” Bouher said. “That’s baseball. We made some errors that gave them some runs. Maybe if they didn’t have them, things would’ve been different. We had a solid year with a bunch of good kids.”
