Menu
Oran rolls through district play unchallenged
ORAN -- Another year, another dominating performance in Class 1, District 2.
The Oran Eagles baseball team broke out to an early lead and never looked back on their way to a 12-2 victory against Bernie in the district championship game Thursday at Oran High School.
Oran (23-4) will play at Cooter on Wednesday in a Class 1 sectional matchup. Game time has yet to be determined.
Oran, which has won five district championships in the last six years, won its three district games by a combined score of 48-11.
"That's a tribute to these kids coming out and playing," said Oran coach Mitch Wood. "They feel like it's their tournament to lose. They're disappointed when they don't win. They did a good job of coming out today and holding their composure."
As they did with each team in the district, Oran defeated the highly-touted Mules with relative ease.
Chase Seyer started things off with a two-out, two-run home run to right field.
The Eagles blew the game open with a four-run third inning highlighted by a bases-clearing single by Chris Asmus in which the ball got by the left fielder.
"They made a couple bobbles -- in big ballgames you can't make those bobbles," said Wood. "You've got to make the little plays."
Oran made it 7-0 on a solo home run by Caleb Seyer in the bottom of the fourth.
Bernie (18-4) managed to cut the lead to 7-2 in the top of the sixth, but the Eagles enforced the 10-run rule in the bottom half of the inning.
Kody Campbell had an RBI-double and Chase Seyer had a two-run single. Alex Chasteen's RBI-single ended up being the final play as the Bernie right fielder couldn't handle the ball, allowing Seyer to score the game-ending run.
"We knew coming into this game that a lot of things would have to go our way for us to win," said Oran coach Morris Karnes. "We competed with them for most of the game, and the score is not indicative of how hard our kids battled. Their hitters are about as good as you'll see in any class, not just 1A. They lost three games in about a two-day period and since then they haven't lost I don't believe. I would be quite surprised if they don't win it all."
Chase Seyer went 2-3 with three runs and three RBIs. He was also the winning pitcher, throwing all six innings and allowing two runs off four hits with four strikeouts and four walks.
"We are deep in pitching," said Wood. "Basically I've got three kids leading us and one of them didn't even get to see the district tournament."
Oran collected 11 hits against the Bernie pitching staff. Marcus Massey was the losing pitcher in 5 1/3 innings. All 10 runs he allowed were earned. Silas Dill pitched to the final three batters of the game, allowing two runs.
Chasteen went 3-4 with an RBI and a run.
"We're hitting the ball much better," said Wood. "We had a spurt in the middle of the year where we weren't hitting the ball very well. But we've gotten back up and we've been ready to play at the right time. Right now we're probably playing the best ball we've played all year long."