It wasn’t winning 17 of their last 19 games or having an arsenal of arms at his disposal or a deadly hitting attack.
Highlands baseball coach Brian Benzinger knew he had something special back in October.
“Our offseason workouts we had 40 something, 50 guys there and I’m like, ‘Okay, these guys are really dedicated and committed to what we’re doing.’,” Benzinger said. “I knew if they stayed together we’d have a special group. “
Fast forward about seven months from that point and the Bluebirds are Ninth Region champions for the first time since 2018. They took down Beechwood on Thursday night at Thomas More Stadium in Florence, 5-2.
They got yet another complete game from their pitching staff, the third one of the tournament, this one from Jacob Robinson. Robinson kept mixing his changeup with his fastball and held the Tigers to three hits and no earned runs while striking out five.
“Fastball-change up is a really good combo for me,” Robinson said. “Growing up watching a couple of Reds players, they had really good fastballs and change ups. With my arm slot, a guy I could compare to is, Luis Castillo. Lot of run on my pitches, so I try to use that to my abilities.”
The two runs allowed were unearned as Robinson didn’t get much help from his defense early. Highlands had four errors through the first two innings allowing Beechwood to climb out of a 3-0 hole and make it 3-2.
“Region championship jitters,” Robinson said. “You just got to keep your composure through all that, because if you have bad body language, or you’re yelling at your team, it’s not going to help. It’s just going to get worse and things spiral. So knowing that my plan is still just throw strikes, attack hitters and keep putting the ball in play, because again, I know I have a great defense behind me.”
Things settled in after an interesting first two innings of play. Robinson continued to keep hitters off balance, doing so efficiently as he didn’t walk a batter and needed 90 pitches to finish the game. Robinson’s quick delivery to the plate was aided by catcher Kai Anderson catching two Beechwood runners on the base paths for outs. He threw out Tyler Fryman at second in the fifth inning and picked off Brady Meier at first in the sixth. The Tigers, who pride themselves with their ability to steal bases and be aggressive on the paths was neutralized.
“I’ve been doing this my whole life throwing guys out,” Anderson said. “It’s my best strong suit. I can do that any day the week.”
Beechwood’s Chase Flaherty didn’t have his best stuff on Thursday, but he’s done what he has his whole high school career…battled.
After giving up two runs in the first and one in the second, Flaherty worked through continuously being behind in counts and walking batters. He’d finish with four walks and hit two batters, but when he finished the sixth inning he got plenty of handshakes and high fives from his coaches and teammates as he left the game with three runs allowed to a Highlands team that averages 7.8 runs per game.
“What a career he’s had,” Tigers coach Kevin Gray said. “We threw him on short rest and we’ve never done that with him. We felt like we could push him because he’s a gamer. He just got behind a lot today. We’re used to him 0-2, 0-2, 0-2, but today was one where he was behind a lot. Still held them to three runs in six innings, he gave us a chance to win.”
Flaherty is one of six seniors on the roster who were a part of three region championship games, winning two of them.
The score remained 3-2 until the seventh. That’s when tournament MVP Brooks Hendrix gave the Bluebirds an insurance run with an RBI double. Adam Forton followed with a double and another insurance run to make it 5-2 as they strung together three straight hits on Tigers reliever Branton Stiles.
Beechwood was able to get the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh, but Robinson got Flaherty to groundout to end the game and give Highlands their first region title since 2018.
Hendrix finished 2-for-3 with a double, RBI and two runs scored.
“First year on varsity, wanted to prove a lot of people wrong,” Hendrix said. “Feel like I should have been there last year for at least a little. I knew what I could do and I came out and showed it.”
Iain Carner, Nolan Schwalbach, Adam Forton and Kai Anderson also drove in runs in the victory.
On top of Hendrix’s MVP honors, Robinson, Forton and Garrett Wiggins were named to the All-Tournament team.
The Bluebirds will now head to Lexington to face the Fourth Region winner, South Warren, in the first round of the state tournament on June 6.
“We’re going to relax for a few days. It’s been an emotional period for everybody. We’ll take the weekend totally off and get started back on Monday and take it one game at a time like we did here this week,” Benzinger said.
PHOTOS: Highlands-Beechwood Ninth Region Championship (provided by Charles Bolton)
BLUEBIRDS 5, TIGERS 2
HIGHLANDS — 210-000-2 — 5-7-6
BEECHWOOD — 020-000-0 — 2-3-1
2B — (H) Forton, Hendrix
RBI — (H) Schwalbach, Hendrix, Forton, Carner, Anderson (B) Edwards
R — (H) Schwalbach 2, Hendrix 2, Wiggins (B) Carlisle, Edwards
WP — Robinson. LP — Flaherty.
Records: Highlands 27-7-1, Beechwood 25-11