‘We hit them right at ’em’: Hornets see state title aspirations snuffed out by Cardinals’ defense

PEORIA, Ill. — These weren’t Texas leaguers, nubbers or Punch-and-Judy pokes coming off the bats of the Brown County baseball players.

“There weren’t a lot of balls hit soft,” first baseman Mason Henry said. “Every ball was hit on the screws.”

Too often, though, they were within the reach of the Louisville North Clay outfielders.

The Hornets were unable to string hits together during Saturday’s Class 1A state championship game largely because of the Cardinals’ defense, which tracked down 11 flyouts and negated the fact Brown County outhit North Clay at Dozer Park.

“We hit them right at ’em,” Brown County catcher Ethan Howell said. “There’s nothing you can really do about that. Their defense was outstanding, and their outfield made a lot of plays. That’s how baseball goes sometimes.”

This time, no amount of fight the Hornets showed could change that. The Cardinals scored three times in the sixth inning and four more in the seventh to break open a tight game and win the program’s first state championship with a 12-4 victory.

“We got down early and we kept battling,” said Henry, who had three of the Hornets’ 12 hits. “We scored. We got runs. We got hits. We outhit them, but this was just one of those days. This team never quits, never gives up. That’s why we went this far and what makes this team so great.”

The Hornets (28-5) made history, too, becoming the first team in any sport in school history to win a state trophy, and they are just the second school from within the West-Central Illinois counties of Adams, Brown, Hancock and Pike to win state baseball hardware.

“Our fight is the main thing that got us here,” junior shortstop Colby Wort said. “We all persevered throughout the postseason. We all wanted to feel that hardware. We’ve got plenty of it, the most I’ve ever seen laid across one table.

“We’re all just grateful for what we were able to do, and the hard work finally paid off.”

It just didn’t result in any crucial breaks.

The teams traded runs in the first inning with a walk, a wild pitch and an error leading to the Cardinals’ run in the top of the first. A one-out single by Sam Carr and a two-out double by Henry enabled the Hornets to answer in the bottom of the frame.

In the second, however, North Clay seized the lead for good, tagging Henry for a walk, three singles and four runs before the left-hander was lifted after 1 ⅓ innings and replaced by Wort.

“I just didn’t have good stuff today,” Henry said. “Luckily, Colby came in and gave us good innings.”

Trailing 5-1, the Hornets scratched across a run in the third when Carr led off with a double and scored on Gabe Blakeley’s single. Then, with one out in the fifth, Henry walked, Will Groesch singled up the middle and Howell singled to right field to plate a run and make it 5-3.

“We knew we deserved to be there,” Howell said.

North Clay opened the sixth with three consecutive singles, which led to the three-run outburst. In the seventh, an error and a pair of two-out walks loaded the bases before Collyn Ballard was hit by a pitch and Logan Fleener delivered a two-run single. The Cardinals tacked on another run after a pitching change.

Back-to-back singles by Henry and Groesch to open the seventh offered a little hope, but only one run came out of it and the season ended on a groundout.

“I’m extremely proud of this group,” Howell said. “This is what we’ve been looking forward to our entire lives. We’ve talked about this ever since we were young. We knew we had the potential to be where we were. To know we lived up to our potential, that’s a great feeling.”

They energized a baseball-loving county in the process.

“I already knew this group was special going in,” Henry said. “But looking out at the sea of people at Dozer Park and seeing the whole county was there, I couldn’t think of anyone I knew that wasn’t at that game. It was amazing to see the support we got from the county.”