Ethan Hitt, East Union break out the bats to sweep MHSAA 2A Baseball Championship series against Stringer
PEARL — Holding a 1-0 series lead and heading into Saturday’s Game 2 of the MHSAA 2A Baseball Championship, East Union coach Chris Basil handed the ball to freshman Landon Harmon.
At no point Saturday did he look like a freshman.
Harmon kept the Stringer Red Devils in check, carrying a no-hitter into the fifth inning in the Urchins’ 9-4 win to sweep the series and deliver the program’s third state baseball championship.
Harmon threw 120 pitches — the limit for a high school pitcher under MHSAA rules — and allowed one earned run on two hits and six walks with six strikeouts.
“I’m not going to lie, my arm is tired,” a grinning Harmon said. “But when the bats come out and put up a couple of runs early like they did, it sure does make it a lot easier. Just takes all the pressure off of you and you can just go out there and pitch.”
It was the second big pitching performance in as many days for East Union, which got a one-hit, 10-strikeout start out of Rudy Baldwyn in Game 1.
And just like in Friday’s win, the bats got going early for the Urchins in Saturday’s victory.
The Urchins (30-4) scored three runs in the first inning, one in the second and two more in the fourth.
After Stringer finally responded with a four-run fifth, knocking Harmon out of the game, series MVP Ethan Hitt laced a two-run double in the sixth to give the Urchins more breathing room.
“Playing here is just a completely different atmosphere,” Hitt said. “When you get a hit like that, you just can’t describe it. So many emotions. Especially with it being my last at-bat here, it’s just real special.”
Hitt was 2-for-4 Saturday with four RBIs. He wasn’t alone in his success in that murderer’s row that makes up the top half of the Urchin lineup — Rett Johnson went 2-for-2 with a triple, walked twice and scored four runs. Hayden Roberts went 3-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and scored three runs.
“It’s just been a total team effort from the start,” Basil said. “We’ve got some good ballplayers, but we’ve got finer young men.”
While East Union lifted the trophy on one side of the field, the Red Devils (28-8) licked their wounds on the other. The loss ended a dream season for the Red Devils, who won 20 games in the regular season, went 10-0 in Region 8 games and swept all four of their playoff series coming into the championship series.
There were a couple of highlights for the Red Devils in that fourth inning Saturday — Evan Holifield drove in two runs with double and Nic Arender brought home the other two with a single — but the timely hits just didn’t come frequently enough over the course of the series. Stringer stranded 15 runners over two games at Trustmark Park.
“All season, we scored those guys when we got them on base,” Weathers said. “And we just didn’t do that here. This was my last game here, but I’m proud of the accomplishments on the field. We made deep runs in 1A, then in 2A. And that’s a credit to our kids and how they bought in.”
(All photos by Austin Frayser)
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