Oran bests Sturgeon, one win away from state championship

O'FALLON -- Ever since it was announced their head coach Mitch Wood was stepping down at the end of the season, the Oran Eagles have made it their mission to send him and their seniors out with the school's first ever state title.

They'll get that chance today after putting together an impressive 5-1 win over Sturgeon Tuesday in the Class 1 semifinals at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O'Fallon.

"It feels good, but there's still a hole there," Oran senior Kody Moore said of the win. "We still haven't fulfilled our goal and we're definitely not done yet.

"There's still one very big game left, but it's a great feeling."

After being forced to wait out a 25-hour delay thanks to storms that loomed over the St. Louis area since early Monday, the Eagles showed no signs of a team affected by all that free time.

Starter Seth Ressel struck out the first two batters he faced on his way to a perfect first frame and Oran backed it up with a four-run rally in the bottom if the inning.

Ressel, batting leadoff, advanced to first on an error which immediately put pressure on Sturgeon's defense and Moore answered with the Eagles' first hit of the night. Alex Heuring plated the first run with Oran's first four hitters coming around to score with less than two outs.

Even after all that damage Oran was able to once again load the bases, but a line out to short ended the threat. By the end of the frame Oran had batted around the order, collecting five hits and benefitting from two errors to take a 4-0 lead.

"You couldn't ask for a better first inning," Moore said. "All we did was hit the ball and put it in play. You're going to get runs if you put the ball in play and it definitely put them on their heels.

"You could tell they were playing from behind after that and we were playing from a much more relaxed, winning stand point."

Though the Eagle's didn't strike again until the fifth, Ressel made good with his newfound lead. He allowed only one hit through the first three innings and when he got in a bases loaded situation in the fifth he got out of it with a grounder to short.

Ressel's only blemish came in the fifth when he surrendered a one-out walk that led to the Bulldogs' only run of the game.

Oran countered, however, in the bottom of the frame when Heuring tripled before coming home on Jacob Priggel's second hit of the afternoon.

"We knew he was a bit slower and threw a lot of junk," Priggel said of Sturgeon pitcher Spencer Kelly. "We just tried to stay on it and hit to make contact and good things happened."

Ressel retired the Bulldogs in order during the final two innings, winning the game on back-to-back swinging strikeouts.

At the end of his seven innings of work Ressel collected seven strikeouts while allowing five hits and one walk.

"I felt pretty good," Ressel said. "The extra day off really had me rested well. My fastball was working pretty good and then I'd come with the curveball and keep them really off balanced."

After relying on Ressel and Moore as co-aces all year, Wood admitted it was no easy task deciding who should start against Sturgeon.

"That was probably the toughest choice I had today was deciding who to pitch because they're both pretty good pitchers," Wood said of Ressel and Moore. "I had been thinking back and forth so me and my two coaches (Larry Boshell and Paul Bucher) talked about it.

"We just felt like with the scouting report we had that Seth would have success against this bunch. We couldn't have went wrong either way. It wouldn't have mattered because they're both good pitchers."

Barring something unexpected, Moore should get the start against Santa Fe in Wednesday's championship game.

As for Sturgeon's Kelly, he pitched a complete game where he allowed five runs, four earned, on eight hits while fanning five. Kelly was also the victim of four errors committed by the Bulldogs' defense.

Wood credited hits from the bottom of the order, consisting of Dustin Gebhardt, Chance Tenkhoff and Thomas Trankler, with preventing Kelly from getting any easy outs as each player collected at least a hit.

"He was a pretty good pitcher and did a good job of keeping us off balance a lot," Wood said. "It's not a secret we'll swing at the ball. Luckily today we had some big production from the bottom of the order.

"Guys made some big bunts to move some people over. The bottom of the order did a really good job today as far as scoring some runs."

At the plate, the Eagles were led by Priggel, who collected two hits on the game, including a triple, while driving in a pair of runs and scoring another. Heuring had the team's only other extra-base hit, a triple, and scored two runs.

A total of seven Eagle hitters contributed a hit to the cause.

All that now stands in the Eagles' way of their elusive first state title is the defending Class 1 champion Sante Fe Chiefs, who defeated Dadeville 11-4 in the other semifinal matchup.

It was the Chiefs who last year handed Oran a 3-2 extra-inning loss in the semifinals before going on to rout Norwood 12-3 to claim the title.

After back-to-back third place finishes the past two years, Oran will play for the championship today at 1 p.m. at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O'Fallon.

Sturgeon 000 010 0 - 1 5 4

Oran 400 010 x - 5 8 0

WP -- Seth Ressel. LP -- Spencer Kelly. Multiple hitters: (S) Ryan Seidel 2-3; (O) Jacob Priggel 2-3. 2B -- (S) Trenton Kalinowski. 3B -- (O) Alex Heuring, Priggel.