Leps Stage Epic Playoff Comeback
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La Grange teammates wait for Hunter Sabo at home plate to celebrate his homerun putting the Leopards up 11-8 in the 6th inning of Game 2 with Sealy Saturday. Photo by Stephanie Steinhauser -
Bradyn Prasek relieves Braxton Dahse in Game 3 of the series with Sealy. La Grange won the series and advances to Area. Photo by Stephanie Steinhauser -
La Grange shortstop Tristan Ulrich makes the stop on a hard hit ground ball in Game 3 of the Bi-District playoff series with Sealy. Photo by Stephanie Steinhauser
Faced with a must-win playoff doubleheader Saturday, the La Grange baseball team kept their season alive with a gutsy mix of timely hitting and stellar pitching.
After losing the first game of their best-of-three baseball playoff series 8-5 to Sealy Thursday, the La Grange baseball team needed to win both their games Saturday in Weimar against the Tigers.
The Leps held off Sealy 13-9 in Saturday’s first game to even the series, and then prevailed 2-0 in the nightcap to clinch the bi-district title and vault La Grange (14-12) into an area round matchup with Burnet later this week.
Here’s how this entire series played out.
Thursday the Leps rallied to force extra innings thanks to an RBI single by Bradyn Prasek in the bottom of the seventh, but they lost to the Tigers 8-5 in eight innings.
In Game 2 Saturday afternoon the Leps were down 8-2 at one point, but won the slugfest as Hunter Sabo had four hits, including a homer and drove in four. Ty Stark, Max Dixon, Tristan Ulrich and Eli Gillum all had three hits for the Leps. Kyler Lamza had two hits, including a double. In all, the Leps had 19 hits as a team. Prasek pitched four innings of relief allowing just one hit and one run.
Game 3 couldn’t have been more different as the Leps won a pitchers’ duel 2-0.
Sealy’s Landen Sodolak pitched a complete game fourhitter but he was outdueled.
La Grange’s Braxton Dahse threw 5.2 innings of two-hit, scoreless ball before Prasek closed out the game with 1.1 innings of scoreless relief.
Dalton Janacek had two of the Leps four hits, and drove in a run. Lamza and Holdyn Cooper had the other hits. Cooper and Gillum scored the Leps’ two runs, one coming in the third and one in the fifth. Ty Stark had an RBI.