Carson Welch heard his Beechwood baseball teammates screaming.
He wasn’t immediately sure why – until he realized he had hit a grand slam home run. His shot off St. Henry’s Nick Browning was the marquee blow in Monday’s nine-run seventh inning, which gave the Tigers a 10-4 win in the Ninth Region All “A” final at Thomas More Stadium.
“It felt like a dream, honestly,” Welch said. “It’s like, ‘When are you going to wake yourself up from it?’ You’re just so locked in the game, you couldn’t hear anything when the ball was hit.
“I thought I popped out at first.”
Beechwood coach Kevin Gray was screaming, too.
“When the ball left the bat, ‘Please get out of here!’ is what I was screaming,” Gray said. “But I knew it was going to at least tie the game ‘cause I knew it was at least a double.
“But when it left the bat, I knew he hit it good; I didn’t know he hit it that good.”
Welch wasn’t swinging for the left field fence. But when he got the inside fastball from Browning …
“I was just trying to put the ball in the gap,” Welch said. “I wanted to make something happen.”
Welch wears No. 0 because he thought it would be different. He would’ve liked No. 32 (senior pitcher Matthew Kappes wears it now) because former Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets outfielder Jay Bruce was his favorite player.
“At one game he gave me a ball, came up to me and talked to me,” Welch said. “It’s stuff you never forget as a little kid.”
Welch’s slam almost made you forget what else Beechwood did in the seventh: Cameron Boyd (3 for 5, two runs and an RBI) crushed two doubles, Ben Meier (2 for 4) added another two-bagger, and Landon Johnson (2 for 4) singled home a run.
“Once we got the lead and then we added on, which was huge, we didn’t just celebrate,” Gray said. “We got four more runs.”
For five at-bats, St. Henry starter Luke Keipert mostly corralled Beechwood’s offense – he struck out five. He caught Johnson looking to end the first inning, sent Matthew Cottongim down swinging to end the second and caught Shawn Sowder looking in the third.
“You’ve got to give Keipert a lot of credit,” Gray said. “We’ve been preparing for him for two days, and he threw the ball harder than we expected. We knew his curveball was really good … he throws inside very well.”
The Crusaders scored three off Beechwood starter Sam Stacy in the first frame. It was a shared attack – Carson Shea’s single plated Sam Martin and Keipert, who had doubled, and John Lubert’s single sent Shea home.
A piece of the mound’s artificial turf tore loose one out into the bottom of the third, halting the game for nearly 10 minutes, but the delay didn’t stop St. Henry’s offense – Shea’s (he was 2 for 3) single scored Matthew Resing, who had singled and stolen second.
Winning pitcher Chase Flaherty relieved Stacy in the fourth, and he bedeviled St. Henry the rest of the way, allowing just two hits with four strikeouts.
St. Henry’s fourth inning was maybe the most frustrating.
Lubert walked and went to second on Rhet Ravenscraft’s bunt single, and both advanced on Andrew Flanagan’s grounder to second. After Martin walked to load the bases, Resing grounded out to second.
Flaherty hit Shea one out into the fifth. It didn’t hurt much because he struck out Lubert and Browning.
Browning – grandson of the late Cincinnati Reds star pitcher Tom Browning – pretty much had his way with Beechwood in the top of the sixth. After walking Torin O’Shea, he struck out Welch and Cottongim swinging and Nazario Pangallo looking.
Flaherty allowed only Keipert’s single in the seventh.
Beechwood meets the 10th Region winner in the first round of the state small-school tournament at 10 a.m. April 29 at Campbellsville High School.
After the game, Gray quoted New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra.
“It’s never over ‘till it’s over,” Gray said.
BEECHWOOD 001 000 9 – 10 14 2
ST. HENRY 301 000 0 – 4 6 0
Stacy, Flaherty (4) and Preston, Welch (5); Keipert, Browning (6), Lange (7) and C. Shea. WP-Flaherty (1-0). LP-Browning (0-3). HR-Welch (B). 2B-Keipert (SH), Boyd (B) 2, Meier (B).
