State Semifinal Split

Flatonia’s Season Ends in Extra-Inning Thriller at UT

Down to their final out, Flatonia engineered a magical comeback in their state semifinal game against Hawley Wednesday.

But the comeback only granted the Bulldogs an extra inning to their season – not another game.

Down most of the game, Flatonia rallied for two runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie the state semifinal 3-3 Wednesday, but Hawley pushed across a run in the extra inning and the Bulldogs couldn’t answer.

That 4-3 victory vaulted Hawley (26-9) into Thursday’s state title game at Dell Diamond against Collinsville, which was a 10-0 winner over Centerville in the other 2A semifinal.

Meanwhile, Flatonia ends their season with an 28-7 record and district, area and regional titles. But they were one win, one run, away from being able to try for the school’s fourth baseball state title.

“It was a great high school baseball game. I tip my hat to them,” said Flatonia head coach Shawn Bruns. “Their pitcher pitched his butt off and ours did too. It was a pitching duel and they just got a few more hits when they needed to, and we didn’t, and that’s baseball.”

“I’m so proud of our kids, proud of the community. We had the biggest crowd here. Flatonia showed up in maroon and white – Not just tonight but throughout the season, and every year.”

This was a game destined for twists and turns from the start.

Because of a rain storm Wednesday morning, which had a chain-reaction effect of state semifinal delays, the site was shifted from Dell Diamond to UT.

Westyn Balch, who had pitched three complete game shutouts already this postseason, started the game for Hawley, opposed by Flatonia’s own ace lefty – Texas A&M junior commit Titan Targac.

And both pitchers kept the game scoreless through three innings.

Then in the top of the fourth, a pair of throwing errors by Flatonia led to a threerun inning for Hawley. Two of the runs were unearned.

Flatonia answered with a single run on their half of the fourth when Henri Vincik was hit by a pitch, singled to third by Nathan Aguillon and scored on a wild pitch.

Hawley would cling to that 3-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh when Balch, who was mowing down the Flatonia lineup, hit his pitch limit.

“He was mixing up his pitches really well,” Targac said. “He was locating his pitches, and his curveball was fooling us.”

One out away from a complete game Balch was pulled with two outs and Railey Nieto on first from a hit-by-pitch.

Hawley reliever Alec Southerland gave up a single to Beck Zimmerman and then hit Cale Janecka to load the bases.

Targac stepped up to the plate.

“I told the catcher and the umpire, ‘It doesn’t get any bigger than this,” Targac recalled. “Then I took a deep breath and just hunted for my pitch.”

He laced a two-run single into left field and the Flatonia faithful exploded as Beck and Janecka rushed home with the game tying runs.

But Flatonia couldn’t complete the comeback.

Southerland got out of the jam with a strikeout.

In the top of the eighth Balch got an infield single against reliever Zimmerman and eventually scored the game winner on a single by Jessie Nieto.

Flatonia only ended up with three hits Wednesday, two by Targac and one by Aguillon.

“Their pitcher kept us guessing and we couldn’t get squared up on a couple of balls when we needed to,” Bruns said. “We had runners in scoring positions in innings where we should have scored.”

Targac pitched 6.1 innings of six-hit ball with eight strikeouts.

Though the Bulldogs graduate four seniors (Janecka, Raymond Toro, Rambo Ramirez and Railey Nieto) the future looks bright.

“To get this far was such an accomplishment,” Targac said.