MC baseball in state Elite Eight

During a preseason interview session, many of the Madison County baseball team players cited advancing to the Region B tournament as a goal. Some believed that this crop of Mountaineers could make the state tournament. One, Dylan Shifflette, even thought they could win their first state championship since 1974. After defeating Buffalo Gap and Gretna, Madison earned a berth in the state tournament and may still yet prove Shifflette right.

But getting to the state tournament was filled with obstacles. Madison’s Region B quarter-final matchup with No. 1 seed Buffalo Gap was rained out twice – on Memorial Day and the day after it. The game was eventually moved from Gap to Stuart’s Draft High School and played on May 27.

The contest, at least on paper, favored the highly ranked Bison. Two Mountaineer errors lead to an unearned run in the first. Madison got on the scoreboard in the second when Kyle Louk led off by drawing a walk. He moved to second on Jacob Houser’s “sac bunt” and scored on Collin Tucker’s single.

Gap retook the lead in the third, scoring a solo run on two hits. Trailing 2-1 in the fourth inning, the Mountaineers put together a season-saving rally. Houser started the inning off with a shot down the third base line. Collin Tucker drew a walk. Travis Warren reached on a bunt single.

Houser scored on the play when the Bison pitcher threw wildly to first. Tucker advanced to third and Warren ended up on second.

Matt Racer then delivered what turned out to be the game-winning hit. His line drive to right center drove in both Tucker and Warren for a 4-2 Madison lead. Gap scored a run in the bottom of the fourth but never threatened again in the Madison 4-3 victory.

Starting pitcher Kyle Louk held the potent Gap line up to only five hits in the complete game outing. “We, as a team, have a quiet confidence and knew we could do this,” said Louk.

Up next for the Mounties were the Gretna Hawks from the Dogwood District. The Hawks came in with a reputation of being a powerful and aggressive team. Rain-outs on Thursday and Friday pushed the game to Saturday afternoon at Madison’s Booster Park. The winner of the Region B semi-final match-up would play the Chatham Cavaliers at 7 p.m. that night for the championship. Moreover, a win over Gretna would ensure that Madison would qualify for the state tournament.

The multiple rain-outs had a silver lining as both Madison and Gretna were able to start their aces on the mound — Louk for Madison and Cory Owen for Gretna. Louk threw another gem, holding the Hawks to one run on six hits. The game had an ominous start for MC. Gretnaa’s Michael Mayhew opened the contest with a sharp single up the middle.

However, any hopes for a rally were quickly extinguished when the next batter lined a rope to first baseman Jacob Houser for one out. He then threw to Evan Tucker at second to double up the runner. In another great defensive play, Shifflette gunned down a Gretna runner at the plate in the third inning to end a threat.

The Hawks were unable to mount any type of threat from the third through the sixth innings. In the top of the seventh, a lead off walk, a single, and two stolen bases, led to one Hawk run and put the game knotting run on third. With two outs, Louk then settled matters himself.

“I was trying to keep the ball down and get a groundout to end the game,” said Louk. What he got was a three-pitch strikeout to earn the win and send Madison to the state tournament. Evan Tucker and Will Taylor had two hits each in the contest.

“Who would have believed this a month ago?” asked Casey Campbell after the big win.

The Mountaineers played host to the Chatham Cavaliers in the Region B finals immediately following the emotional win over Gretna. Chatham entered the game with a 21-2 overall record.

Undaunted, Madison scored one in the first and two in the second to jump out to a 3-0 lead. Unfortunately for MC, its defense committed two errors to start the third inning.

The next three batters for Chatham had base hits giving them a 4-3 lead. MCHS evened the score in the bottom of the third at 4-4. Chatham went on to score three in the fifth, two in the sixth and four in the seventh to account for the 13-4 win and the Region B Championship. Warren and Louk led the Madison offense with two hits each.

Madison was scheduled to play Rappahannock High School in Warsaw in the state quarter-finals on Tuesday, June 2. Results were unavailable at press time.