With an early three-run deficit and facing what many consider the best pitcher in Northern Kentucky, Dixie Heights did the unthinkable.
The Colonels rallied to score two runs in the bottom of the seventh to knock off defending champ Ryle in the 9th Region baseball tournament quarterfinals on Monday at Thomas More Stadium in Florence, 4-3.
Trailing 3-2 and down to their final three outs, the Colonels survived and advanced by reaching on two errors and followed it with run-scoring singles from Austin Krohmer and the game-winner from Owen Caudill.
“I’ve got a few to compare, been doing this a while,” Colonels coach Chris Maxwell said. “But to do this against basically the best pitcher in Northern Kentucky and give him his first defeat in Northern Kentucky is unbelievable.”
Caudill took the first pitch he saw and deposited it into right center field, bringing Sean Mitchell home from second base and sending the Colonels into a frenzy.
“We knew we had a shot,” Mitchell said. “Going back the past couple years we’ve always been fighting. We’ve fought all year and some games haven’t gone our way, but this one did.”
Ryle had their chances leading up to that point. Regardless of the two costly errors in the seventh, they left eight men on base, unable to find a timely hit after the third inning to extend the lead.
“We lost this game before the seventh inning,” Raiders coach Joe Aylor said. “Seven guys left in scoring position. We had talked and knew it would take timely hitting to get past Dixie in the regional tournament and unfortunately we just didn’t do it.”
Raiders ace Dylan McIntyre was in control for the majority. Through five innings, he had limited the Colonels to five hits and didn’t allow an earned run on the day. The sixth inning is when things started to unravel for the Raiders.
After a leadoff double from Dixie’s Krohmer, he then came around to score on a Caudill fielder’s choice, the first of three Raider errors in the final two innings to make it 3-2. Dixie threatened to tie things up with Caudill on third and one out, but McIntyre got a groundout to first and a strikeout to end the frame.
The dreaded bottom of the seventh inning for the Raiders started with a Landon Louden error, a grounder hit to him at shortstop and a throw that was air mailed over to first. After Will Steczynski sacrificed courtesy runner Andy Jung to second, a liner back to McIntyre put the Colonels down to their final out.
A sharp grounder hit back to McIntyre would have ended it, but the senior ace couldn’t corral it and it bounced off his glove for an error, putting runners on the corners and bringing Krohmer to the plate.
Krohmer’s single scored Mitchell.
“I wasn’t thinking too much, just wanted to put a ball in play hard,” Krohmer said. “Everyone was doubting us today to do this so it’s pretty awesome.”
Then Caudill approached.
“Any way possible,” Caudill said. “I had been getting mainly fastballs all game so my approach is I’m a first pitch kind of guy. I think that’s the best pitch sometimes you see all at bat and wanted to shoot something the other way and get those runs across.”
The loss puts an end to Ryle’s season at 24-12, who many favored to repeat as region champs before the season started and into the start of Monday’s tournament. They were led at the plate by Josh Caudill’s three hits and driving in a run. Lucas Sanders added an RBI double, Anthony Coppola scoring on a wild pitch for the run production. They graduate a large senior class of 13 players.
“Just told them go be great. This is just one chapter in your life,” Aylor said. “This isn’t it. We had a lot of our alumni come back this past week to throw to our guys. This game isn’t the thing that you’re going to remember. We’re going to remember the family that we’ve created here.”
McIntyre’s final high school start ended with 6.2 innings pitched, eight hits, four runs, none of them earned to go with two walks and eight strikeouts.
“Once he crossed that 75 pitch limit, we were like, ‘It’s your game.’ We had guys ready to go, guys that we trusted, but we felt like he was our best option in that spot,” Aylor said.
Mitchell, Krohmer and Caudill had two hits apiece for Dixie. Krohmer and Caudill with the runs driven in. Oliver Linstruth and Jung scored the other two runs.
Dixie’s Kyle Flynn battled in his complete game effort. He didn’t have his best stuff on Monday, but finished with six hits allowed, three earned runs, walked five and struck out seven.
“On my way out to left field from the dugout I just kept reminding him to stay calm,” Caudill said. “He’s our best and throws very well. When he’s not throwing his best, we have to pick him up and I thought he did a very good job battling today.”
The Colonels will face Highlands in Wednesday’s semifinals at 5 p.m. The Bluebirds won the lone matchup between the two this season, 4-2 back on May 9. Dixie will be looking for their second straight trip to the region finals. They avenged last season’s 2-1 loss to Ryle in the region championship on Monday.
DIXIE HEIGHTS 4, RYLE 3
RYLE — 012-000-0 — 3-6-3
DIXIE — 001-001-2 — 4-8-2
2B — (R) Caudill, Sanders (DH) Krohmer
RBI — (R) Sanders, Caudill (DH) Krohmer, Caudill
WP — Flynn. LP — McIntyre.
Records: Ryle 24-12, Dixie Heights 21-17