ATHENS, Tenn. — In Tuesday’s practice, the Cleveland baseball team worked on turning double plays.
Wednesday, they showed they practice makes perfect, turning three double plays, including a McMinn County rally-killer in the bottom of the sixth, on their way to a 4-2 victory in the Region 3-AAA championship. The win marks the first region title for the Raiders since 1988.
Cleveland and McMinn both advance to the Class AAA sub-state. Cleveland (24-10), winners of five in a row, draws Region 4 runner-up Coffee County (26-11-1), who fell to Blackman 6-5. The Cherokees (24-9) will travel to battle the Blaze (26-9).
“It was a good win for us,” Cleveland starting pitcher Ethan Brewer said. “I’m glad we get to play again at our house.”
Raider coach Ted Carson, known for pitching surprises, had another one Wednesday when he tossed out Brewer to start. The burly senior had defeated McMinn 4-3 earlier in the year and responded again Wednesday, tossing five shutout innings before getting pulled with one out in the sixth.
“I talked to the kids and saw how they felt,” Carson said. “I knew he was a good pitcher, so I went to him yesterday and told him he was going to start. We have a bunch of guys that can throw and win a game for us.”
“I was surprised,” Brewer said. “In the pen before the game, I was shaky, but I came out and used my 2-seam fastball. My gameplan was to throw strikes and not have any walks.”
The Raiders took a 3-0 lead in the top of the third on a pair of unearned runs and a Blake Ray double. They added a run in the fifth on a RBI single by Cameron Brewster. The Cherokees aided Cleveland’s cause with three errors.
“McMinn had a couple of bobbles that helped us out, and we just had a couple of timely hits,” Carson said.
“We started off slow,” McMinn County coach Jason Howard said. “Their pitcher shut us down for the first four or five innings and they turned three double plays that killed us.”
Brewer was good, but had the help of his defense. The Raiders turned double plays in the second and fourth innings, but none were bigger than the one in the sixth.
With one run already in on a Cody Hiefnor solo home run, back-to-back singles by Matt Pippin and Case Roberts caused Carson to turn to relief pitcher Brandon Rader. Heath Comerford was the first batter up, and after nearly tying the game with fly ball that sailed foul, Comerford grounded to first, where first baseman Brett Murray started a 3-6-3 double play to get the Raiders out of a jam.
“Coach just made a good decision for me to not hold the runner on,” Murray said. “The ball came right at me and I dropped my glove and threw to (Derek) Shugart. We work on that in practice, and it came through today.”
“It was a really good defensive play — probably the play of the game,” Carson said. “It killed their rally; I couldn’t have asked for a better play.”
In the bottom of the seventh, Andrew Smith had a round-tripper to cut the lead to 4-2, but Rader induced a pair of groundouts and a fly out to end the game.
Howard isn’t phased by his team traveling to Murfreesboro for a sub-state game.
“We’ve won on the road before, and we can do it again,” he said. “You can always bounce back from a bad game — we just have to do it Friday.”
Region 3-AAA Championship at McMinn County
CLEVELAND 4, MCMINN COUNTY 2
Cleveland 003 010 0 — 4 4 0
McMinn County 000 001 1 — 2 7 3
WP: Ethan Brewer; 5 1/3 IP, 2 Ks. LP: Adam Powers. Save: Brandon Rader. HR: Cody Hiefnor, Andrew Smith (MC). 2B: Blake Ray (CHS). Records: Cleveland 24-10; McMinn 24-9.
