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Red Devils to meet old foe Valle
CHAFFEE -- After securing their first district title since 2010, the Chaffee Red Devils now find themselves matched up against a old postseason foe in Valle Catholic as they get set for Monday's Class 2 sectional contest.
The game will pit two of the premiere teams in Class 2 against each other as the Warriors enter the matchup as the second-ranked team in the state while the Red Devils are right behind them, sitting at No. 3.
"I know they have an extremely good record," Chaffee head coach Brian Horrell said of Valle, who currently sit at 25-4. "They're ranked No. 2 in state in the latest polls so it's nice for our kids and they're excited about playing somebody with that good of a history."
Before this year's district realignment, Chaffee and Valle spent the past several years as district rivals with Valle winning each of the past two Class 3 championships. Though they didn't meet in last year's tournament, it was the Warriors who took down Chaffee 6-3 in 2011 for the first of three-straight district championships.
Now in District 4, Valle hammered Bismark for a 19-4 win during the title game after a 3-1 win over Kingston in the semifinals.
Chaffee is hoping to get the same kind of pitching performance from their ace, junior Cody Payne, against the Warriors as they did against Bloomfield in the District 3 championship.
In that contest, a 3-0 win, Payne held the Wildcats to only four hits in a complete game shutout where he didn't surrender a walk and struck out 11.
"I know they had a big district championship," Horrell said about Valle. "However, they had a 3-1 semifinal win and I think that team they played in the semis, Kingston, had a really nice pitcher.
"We feel like we have a nice pitcher as well. We're hoping maybe that (Payne) could do what happened to them in the semis and shut them down a little bit."
In a bit of added luck, Payne will get an extra day's rest after what was suppose to be a Wednesday district title game last week got moved up to Tuesday to accommodate Bloomfield's schedule.
If you look at records, the Warriors appear to have an edge going into the contest as their only four losses come against particularly tough opponents including Notre Dame, Dexter, Ste. Genevieve and Cape Central.
Though the Red Devils' record isn't as impressive (21-7) they also hold a win over Cape Central and fell in a close game to Notre Dame, 3-0.
Chaffee's schedule was noticeably beefed up this year in preparation for a playoff push as they added tougher regular season matchups that included an early season bout with Neelyville, who are currently the top-ranked team in Class 2.
"We went out and added some people this year," Horrell said. "This time of year you hope the good competition has you ready to go."
Like in their title win over Bloomfield, where Cody Johnson's two-RBI hit in the first inning changed the game, the Red Devils expect Monday's contest will come down to timely hits.
With both teams throwing their aces, Horrell expects a defensive-minded game and that's the type of ball, he says, that his team's built for.
"I hope it's going to come down to timely hitting and hopefully we're the ones that's going to have to find a way to come up with a timely hit," Horrell said. "Because I think if we're going to get in a slugfest it's going to be a disadvantage to us.
"We have to hope our pitcher and defense is on."
If the Red Devils can take down the Warriors and advance to the quarterfinal they'll be knocking off a team that finished second to Class 2 champions South Callaway last year and was a quarterfinalist the year prior. It was in 2009 when the Warriors won it all with a 6-2 championship game over Strafford.
Monday's game will start at 4:30 p.m. at Harmon Field in Chaffee.