Eight innings of postseason tension finally came down to the softest contact of the night, ending Simon Kenton’s season in heartbreaking fashion.
After battling through a tightly contested 8th Region tournament semifinal Wednesday night at Thomas More Stadium, the Pioneers saw their season come to a close when South Oldham scratched across a walk-off run on a squeeze bunt in the bottom of the eighth inning for a 6-5 victory.
The winning sequence began when Jake Dillon reached on a Simon Kenton error and advanced to second on the same play. Jair Funes followed with a single that moved Dillon to third and immediately put pressure on the Pioneers’ defense.
With one out and the winning run just 90 feet away, South Oldham turned to small ball.
No. 9 hitter Joe Closurdo dropped down a bunt toward the mound, forcing Simon Kenton pitcher Jeffery Young to charge and make a play at the plate. Dillon narrowly beat the throw home, touching the plate just ahead of the tag to send the Dragons into celebration.
“First pitch they put it on and they were crashing, second we took it off and they crashed again, third pitch was the same and then they went back to holding the runner and that’s when we went with the bunt,” South Oldham head coach Ryan Wheat said. “The plan was to bunt the whole time. We were aggressive and wanted to see what happened, but as soon as they held the runner, the play was back home.”
Before that moment, momentum had already started shifting toward the 15th-ranked Dragons before the decisive eighth inning.
Going into the seventh, Simon Kenton held a 5-4 lead and was just three outs away from a trip to the region championship game. Instead, South Oldham’s Luke Belardo opened the inning with a game-tying solo home run that eventually forced extra innings.
The Pioneers made their first pitching change of the night following the tying run, bringing in Jeffery Young for senior starter Luke Lawson, who returned from injury and delivered a strong outing.
Lawson went six innings, allowing nine hits and two earned runs while walking none and striking out three. Despite South Oldham putting pressure on throughout the night, Lawson consistently kept the Dragons from fully taking control.
“He’s a dog, he gives you everything he has and I wish we could’ve gotten that one because he deserved the win,” Simon Kenton head coach Brady Smiley said. “He had tendinitis in his elbow last year that flared up again. He went out against NewCath on May 11, and he came to us a couple days ago and said he thought he’d be ready for this game.”
Lawson also contributed offensively, finishing 2-for-2 with a run scored.
South Oldham struck first with three runs over the opening two innings. Simon Kenton got on the board in the third with the help of a fielder’s choice and an error from the Dragons before tying the game on a bases-loaded walk.
Caleb Uhl, who led Simon Kenton with two RBIs, delivered both runs on a single in the fourth inning. Later, after South Oldham trimmed the deficit, Charlie Overton came through as a pinch hitter in the sixth with an RBI single to give the Pioneers a 5-3 advantage.
With the game down to the wire, the Dragons seemed to be at their best.
The Dragons scored once in the sixth, once in the seventh and again in the eighth while holding Simon Kenton scoreless over the final two innings. South Oldham retired the final six batters they faced, with Dawson Russell recording the final four outs to earn the win.
“I told them we’ve seen this pitcher a million times and we just didn’t get a hit,” Smiley said. “That’s baseball.”
South Oldham finished with 10 hits and advanced to face district rival North Oldham in the 8th Region championship game Thursday at 5 p.m. in Florence.
Simon Kenton’s season ends at 21-12. The Pioneers will graduate 11 seniors, including all but three starters from the lineup.
DRAGONS 6, PIONEERS 5
SIMON KENTON — 002-201-00 — 5-5-3
SOUTH OLDHAM — 120-001-11 — 6-10-1
RBI — (SO) Belardo, Closurdo, J. Dillon, Mitchell, Russell (SK) Uhl 2, Bockmon, Overton
2B — (SO) Layne (SK) French
HR — (SO) Belardo
WP — Russell. LP — Young.
Records: South Oldham 26-8, Simon Kenton 21-12
