Matthew Azordegan, Andrew Carron lead St. Andrew's past Magee to clinch Region 6-3A title

MAGEE — If there's no replacement for good pitching in the post-season, the St. Andrew's Saints appear to be built for May.

It was definitely the key for St. Andrew’s in this week’s series.

Behind the pitching of Andrew Carron and some timely hitting, the Saints got past Magee 6-2 to claim the Region 6-3A title on Thursday night.

St. Andrew’s (16-8) will face Enterprise-Clarke in the first round of the MHSAA Class 3A playoffs that begin next Friday night.

Magee (10-15) will be the No. 2 seed out of Region 6-3A and will face Morton in the first round.

“Andrew hasn’t been able to pitch in three weeks and tonight I didn’t really know how far he could go and he competed,” said St. Andrew’s coach Mark Fanning. “He wanted the ball and got a lot of swings and misses and pitches had a lot of run to them. Pitching definitely won this series for us.”

Carron (3-1) tossed six and two-thirds innings, scattered four hits, gave up two runs, walked four and had 10 strikeouts for the Saints.

On Tuesday, Matthew Azordegan struck out 19 batters.

St. Andrew’s never trailed, as Azordegan had a RBI double to center to give the Saints a 1-0 lead and came home to score on a Jack Hirchert single to right to take a 2-0 lead in the top of the first.

Azordegan drew a bases-loaded walk in the fourth to give the Saints a 3-0 lead.

Azordegan and Blake Bell had two hits each to lead St. Andrew’s offensively.

“Was trying to keep my approach as simply as possible at the plate and just thinking of taking the pitch the other way instead of pulling,” Azordegan said. “Pitching has been our strength all year. We persevered tonight and we won the district and that’s big.”

Magee cut the lead down to 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth as Jeremiah Cole had a two-run single down the third base line.

St. Andrew’s tacked on a run in the fifth on a throwing error and then two more runs in the sixth on a wild pitch and another throwing error to take the 6-2 lead.

“Matthew has been big for us all year, not just with his play but as a leader,” Fanning said. “He was big for us this series, but now we got to continue to get better going into the playoffs next week.”

Kaden Harper (3-2) took the loss on the mound for Magee.