In Battle of State-Ranked Squads, RT-C Edges Fayetteville in Extra Inning Thriller

The Fayetteville and Round Top-Carmine High School baseball teams squared off in a district matchup at Fayetteville’s SPJST Park Tuesday night that went down to the wire in extra innings.

A scoreless ballgame until the fifth inning made way for a two-run homerun by Carmine’s Ryker Goehring to take a 2-0 lead. Fayetteville responded in the bottom half of the inning when freshman Keagan Supak drove in two runs of his own to tie the game.

Carmine found a way to scrape out the victory as Goehring drove in another run on a sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth inning and the Cubs scored their final run during a bases loaded jam on a fielder’s choice to grab hold of a 4-2 win on the road.

“It was a great game by both teams,” said Round Top-Carmine head baseball coach Blake Goehring. “We battled, we got up, then they tied it. Neither team was backing down. Finally, I guess everybody got tired and we ended the game there. We kept fighting and we got Ryker in there. When we got a lead, I felt pretty good that he could close it down.”

Ryker Goehring, son of Blake Goehring, not only produced on the offensive end, but took the mound in the last couple innings in order to make sure his team went home with a mark in the win column.

“I just try to do all I can, whether it’s offensively, defensively, or on the mound,” Ryker Goehring said. “Alex (Pieper) pitched a great game and I wanted to come in there and close it out for him. That was the same way offensively. I just wanted to give them run support.”

On the Fayetteville side, they look to get ready for another contest against RT-C this Friday.

“They scored runs when they got runners on base in scoring position,” said Fayetteville head baseball coach Clint Jaeger. “They’re a good team, we’re a good team, and that’s about as close as you can make it. We each scored in the same inning. They put two up on the board, then we answered with two. We go to extra innings and we came up a little short. I’m proud of the way the guys played and the way the whole game went. It just didn’t go our way. Two pretty good teams that are going to make long runs.”

It was a family affair in the top of the fifth inning when the Cubs got the bats going on a bouncing ground ball down the third baseline that snuck into the outfield by Kannyn Goehring, who is the brother of Ryker Goehring.

Then Ryker Goehring followed it up with his two-run blast over the left field wall to take a 2-0 lead. Fayetteville quickly turned on their offense in the bottom of the fifth when they were able to knock two base hits and open the door for Supak to drive them in with a sharp liner to left field. No more runs were scored until the game went into extra innings and Carmine strategized their way around the bases with a stolen base and sacrifice bunt. This led to Goehring’s fly out to center field where the runner on third base tagged up to make it a 3-2 ballgame. The Cubs scored their final run when they loaded the bases with one out and hit a grounder to the shortstop that was thrown to second base on a fielder’s choice to go up 4-2.

Goehring then sealed the victory by striking out the first two batters and a groundout to the shortstop for the final out to earn a huge district win.

Texas HS Baseball Coaches Association 1A State Rankings

1. Round Top Carmine – 9-3; 6-1

2. Dodd City – 10-1; 6-0

3. Fayetteville – 8-5; 5-2

4. D’Hanis – 10-4; 0-0

5. Nazareth – 5-0; 2-0