In order for the All A 9th Region baseball semifinals to take place Thursday at Thomas More Stadium in Florence (home of the Florence Y’alls), the two quarterfinal games rained out Tuesday had to come first.
The rains came again Wednesday but did not cancel those two games at Beechwood. The St. Henry Crusaders (7-2-1 overall) downed the Newport Wildcats (1-8), 22-0 in three innings before the Villa Madonna Vikings (7-6) pulled away from the Bellevue Tigers (3-8) for a 7-1 win in the seventh inning.
St. Henry and Villa Madonna square off at 5 p.m. in the first semifinal game Thursday. The second game features two 7-0 teams in the Beechwood Tigers and the Newport Central Catholic Thoroughbreds at 7:30 p.m.
St. Henry scored nine runs in the top of the first against Newport then added five more in the top of the second and eight in the top of the third to force the run-ruling. The Crusaders took advantage of five Newport errors, six walks and committed one.
Senior Connor Albrinck picked up the win for the Crusaders throwing a complete game. He struck out five, walked one and allowed just one hit.
The Crusaders batted .517 (15 for 29) in the game with four players recording multi-hit games. Junior left fielder Matthew Resing went 3 for 3 with a double, two runs batted in and three runs scored. Senior center fielder Owen Eilerman went 3 for 3 with two doubles, four RBI and one run scored. Senior Luke Mason went 3 for 4 with a triple, three RBI and three runs scored. Senior catcher Carter Scheben went 2 for 2 with a double and one RBI. Senior left fielder Matthew Miller added a double. Junior designated hitter Nick Browning and sophomore catcher Carson Shea scored three runs each. Senior third baseman Camden Fedders added four RBI with junior second baseman Rhet Ravenscraft scoring twice.
St. Henry won the tournament last year. The Crusaders lost 4-1 in the All A State Semifinals to eventual state champion Owensboro Catholic.
