Blue Lions play spoiler; Indians and Tigers share SCOL title
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
The Hillsboro Indians were unable to seal the outright South Central Ohio League title Friday night, falling to the Washington Blue Lions 8-3 at Shaffer Park to wrap up the regular season slate of games.
HHS and the McClain Tigers will share the SCOL title with an 8-4 league mark. This season, the Tribe swept the Tigers, but HHS was swept by the Blue Lions in their two meetings. McClain split their season series with the Blue Lions, as both games ended in walk-off fashion.
"We are still back-to-back champions, and that was our main goal this season," HHS head coach Rusty Swackhamer said. "Nobody wants to share the title, but being co-champions is still nice for the guys. We played up and down at times this season, so to come out with an SCOL title means a lot."
The Blue Lions went a combined 3-1 against the co-champions of the SCOL this season.
"With us having a winning record against the top of the league shows what kind of roller coaster season we had," WSHS head coach Troy Montgomery said. "It is nice to compete with the top two teams in the league. HHS is a good team, and I think the seniors just wanted this game a lot, being their last league game of their careers."
As for Hillsboro (13-7, 8-4) on Friday, they scored runs in just two innings. Their first run came in the bottom of the second with Airic Steagall being knocked home on a base hit by Logan Watson. Steagall reached the bases on a single.
The lead was short-lived, as the Blue Lions (10-11, 6-6) put three runs in the scorebook with Connor Johnson, Parker Huffman and Casey Shaw all rounding the bases for Washington.
The Blue Lions added two runs in the fifth with Chris Blair and Bryce Bryan scoring, making the score runs 5-1 in favor of Washington.
The lead increased to seven runs after the top of the sixth was completed when Johnson, Sanderson and Huffman all scored for WCH.
HHS responded with two runs in its half of the sixth with Patrick Garman forcing a walk. Brandon Wilson reached on a fielders choice and Aric Carroll was hit by a pitch. Steagall hit a two-run double to score Wilson and Carroll.
Dow Kiefer also gained a base hit in the sixth inning for HHS.
Bryan gained the win on the mound. He went seven innings, allowing three runs on five hits and one walk, while adding eight strikeouts. Bryan recorded two strikeouts in the first, second and fifth innings. All eight strikeouts came in the first five innings.
Logan Wilson was charged with the loss. He struck out six batters.
The loss puts HHS at 13-7 overall, 8-4 in the SCOL.
HHS will play in the Division II SE District sectional tournament on Monday as they will travel to face Circleville at 5 p.m.
BOX SCORE
WSHS 003 023 0 - 8
HHS 010 002 0 - 3
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