Mahomet-Seymour Secures Third Sectional Baseball Title with Dramatic Walk-off Win, Ends Season with Loss to Highland
By FRED KRONER
Mahomet-Seymour Baseball
Mahomet-Seymour’s baseball team had very little time to celebrate the third sectional championship in the sport in school history.
Barely five hours after a comeback win over Champaign Central, 5-4, on Monday (June 3) at Monticello in the completion of a suspended sectional title game from two days earlier, M-S was back on the field.
The Bulldogs then traveled to Decatur for a super-sectional matchup against Highland.
The schools were tied 3-3, going into the bottom of the sixth inning when Highland put three runs on the board and salvaged a state berth with a 6-3 triumph.
Against Central, Raymond Long scored both of the final two M-S runs.
In the fifth inning, Tyson Finch’s fifth-inning double plated Long to create a 4-4 deadlock.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Bulldogs loaded the bases with no outs, but the bases were still full with two outs when Noah Butler drew a walk on a full-count pitch, forcing in Long for the walk-off victory.
The 5-4 Bulldog victory marked the third consecutive one-run win for the team in the postseason. During the regular season, M-S played three one-run games and went 1-2 in those contests.
Butler, Finn Randolph and Gavin Bailey all collected two hits against Central.
Alec Bergman pitched three innings of one-hit relief and captured the win. Bergman walked two batters and struck out five.
Against Highland, M-S tallied all of its runs in the top of the first inning.
The team’s first three batters, Camden Heinold, Randolph and Bailey all reached base before the next three batters (Long, Nolan Johnson and Finch) knocked in runs. The Bulldogs didn’t have a hit in the inning.
Highland scored one run in the bottom of the first and forged a tie with a two-run fourth-inning.
M-S was limited to one hit in the game, a third-inning single by Henry Wagner.
Randolph pitched the first five innings, walking two and fanning two. Reliever Cade Starrick threw the last inning and posted one walk and one strikeout.
M-S finished the season with a 28-9 overall record. Highland carries a 29-6-1 mark into a Friday (June 7) state semifinal game at Joliet.
Champaign Central ends the year with a 25-14 final record.
The other M-S sectional championships were earned in 1988 and 2000.
For this season, six players (with at least 10 at-bats) compiled batting averages over .300 for the Bulldogs.
The team leaders were Bailey (.402), Butler (.390), Long (.360), Randolph (.330), Johnson (.315) and Heinold (.308).
Four squad members shared the team-lead in stolen bases with 14 apiece: Bailey, Heinold, Long and Randolph. Cade Starrick swiped 11 bases.
The Bulldogs’ RBI leaders were Bailey (42), Long (36), Heinold (25), Randolph (23) and Johnson (20).
Bailey (14) and Long (13) produced the most games with two, or more, hits.
The team leaders in runs scored were Randolph (36), Bailey (34), Long (32), Heinold (31), Matthew Orr (30) and Butler (25).
Bailey swatted the most hits (43) as well as the most extra-base hits (13). Long totaled 40 hits.
Eleven Bulldogs made pitching appearances and seven of them secured two, or more, wins.
The leader was Randolph (7-2 record), followed by Mason Orton (6-0), Max Young (4-2), Kody Ackman (3-1), Bergman (3-3), Miles Woolsey (3-0) and Starrick (2-1).
The most frequently used pitchers were Bergman and Starrick, with 13 appearances each, followed by Orton (12) and Randolph (11).
The top earned run averages, for hurlers with at least 10 innings pitched, were Johnson (1.58), Woolsey (1.59), Orton (1.79) and Young (1.89).
The team’s leading strikeout artists were Orton (84), Randolph (49), Bergman (43) and Young (34).
Those four were also the pacesetters for innings pitched: Orton (54 2/3), Randolph (47 2/3), Bergman (32 2/3) and Young (29 2/3).
Starrick led the way with four saves,
The seven M-S seniors were Ackman, Bergman, Butler, Orr, Randolph, Starrick and Brian Woodbury.
