Heritage Hall uses late rally to top Hilldale

Heritage Hall rolled the dice late against Hilldale and was rewarded with a 5-3 win in the Class 4A state tournament on Thursday.

Coach Breck Draper put his trust into Roman Phansalkar with the Chargers down a run in the bottom of the sixth and the senior didn’t disappoint.

Phansalkar took advantage of a slow windup, jolted from third and safely stole home to tie the game at three runs.

“He’s been unbelievable,” Draper said of Phansalkar. “I asked him, ‘you want to do this?’ And I had complete faith in him. I know it’s a risky, risky deal. But we’ve always kind-of went against the normal ways of going about our business.”

Phansalkar touched the tip of the base and had little doubt he was safe after making the crucial play.

“We didn’t have many hits today, so we had to steal one,” Phansalkar said. “We talked about it at the beginning of the timeout there. I got the sign, had a perfect read there and it was bangbang.”

The ensuing batter, senior Devin Crawford, plated two runs to give Heritage Hall its first lead of the day and set up a date with Berryhill in the state semifinals on Friday.

Phansalkar earned the win on the mound. The Arizona signee let up two hits, but didn’t allow any runs in two innings of relief.

Hilldale senior Cameron Haughey was dealt the loss, allowing two runs on one hit and walking two in

one inning worked.

Berryhill 3, Blanchard 1

Berryhill pitcher Jacob Bailey threw a complete game, struck out nine and allowed one run on five hits to help his team beat Blanchard 3-1 in the Class 4A state tournament on Thursday.

Chiefs coach Brian Haileywas confident in Bailey to slow down Blanchard and, offensively, the Chiefs were able to put up three runs on nine hits against Blanchard’s Aaron Brooks.

“(Blanchard’s) a really good offensive team, and we thought we could match them with Jacob on the mound,” Hailey said. “There’s no doubt they were the best offensive team in this thing, but Jacob was the equalizer on the mound.”

Conner West was 2-of-3 with two RBI to lead Berryhill in the teams’ second meeting of the season.

Byng 2, Oologah 0

Senior pitcher Levi Prater fueled a 2-0 Byng win over Oologah in a game that endured a 90 minute delay due to inclement weather.

Prater struck out 12 batters and let up just three hits in the shutout.

Cedric Davis finished 1-of-3 with an RBI to lead the Pirates to the semifinals.

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After allowing the first two batters to reach base in Thursday’s Class 2A state baseball tournament opener, Dale’s Drew Reed was already on the ropes.

“I was thinking I’m fixing to get him out of there,” Pirates coach Jerry Sanford said.

But Reed got out of the jam with a fly out and two grounders and settled in, scattering six hits in a complete-game shutout to help Dale beat Calera 4-0 at Ed Skelton Field.

Dale (26-9) advances to play either Oktaha or Ketchum at 2:30 p.m. Friday in the semifinals.

Reed’s breaking stuff was the key for him, as the scouting report on Calera was that the Bulldogs would chase out of the zone.

“He got that curveball over,” Dale catcher Austin Custar said. “The first inning, he wasn’t throwing Coming off a regional championship in a tightly contested 800 with a time of 2:23.13.

Class it very well and then as the game went on, he got better. He was hitting his spots all day today.”

Reed’s curveball got even more effective over the last three innings.

Through four innings, Calera’s Shawn Harper had held the Pirates’ offense without a hit, hitting his spots and keeping Dale off balance.

So when Harper hit the first batter in the fifth to put just the second Dale runner on base in the game, Sanford decided to go after a run.

Drew Reed laid down a near-perfect sacrifice and Calera catcher Cooper Hamilton bounced the throw through first baseman Zach Maynard’s legs and into right field.

Then Bryce Crawford, down in the count 0-2, reached out and hit a liner to right that eluded a diving Rylan Neal.

Both runners scored and Crawford reached third. The next batter hit a short fly to left and Crawford was able to come home to put the Pirates up 3-0.

Not only did that loosen up Dale at the plate — though the only other hit they had was Tanner Herring’s RBI single in the seventh — but it kept Calera chasing after Reed’s curve.

“They start pressing and then you get weak ground balls and pop ups and if you go catch those balls — you’re good,” Sanford said.

Wister 4, Latta 2

Latta made

things interesting at the end, loading the bases in the seventh before Cash Ballentine escaped the jam and sent Wister into Friday’s semifinals where they’ll play Silo at noon.

Wister broke through in the second with three runs fueled by a pair of Latta errors.

Ballentine came up big in that inning as well, delivering a two-run single.

Silo 4, Wyandotte 1

Brandon Wright was excellent on the mound, throwing a completegame two-hitter to help Silo advance.

The Rebels got all the runs they needed in the first when Hunter Ratcliffe delivered a tworun double to rightcenter to score two and then his courtesy runner, Brandon Wright, scored on a sacrifice fly.