Oran baseball team claims first state title in school history

O'FALLON, Mo. -- Forget the curse, the bad luck, the near misses, the errors and that gaping hole in the resume of a coach and his program.

The Oran baseball team is the Class 1 state baseball champion. At last.

It took 12 trips to the final four for the school, 10 for Mitch Wood as coach and four -- in two sports -- for many of the players on the field, but an 8-4 victory over defending champion Santa Fe on Wednesday at T.R. Hughes Ballpark earned the school its first state championship in any sport.

"I think it just solidifies our program," said Oran coach Mitch Wood, who is retiring from coaching after 21 years at the school. "It says that Oran baseball are state champions. We're a championship program. I felt like we were all along, but I'm not going to argue with anybody anymore. Just go home and look at the trophy case is all I can tell you. We've got a championship program. It's that simple."

The first title for Wood came in his last game as the team's coach, and it came in comeback fashion as the Eagles scored the final eight runs of the game.

Junior Seth Ressel struck out the final batter with a curveball, and his teammates rushed toward him to celebrate.

"I knew it was going to feel good," senior Kody Moore said. "Well, I didn't know we were going to win it, but I knew if we ever won it, it would feel great. But I never imagined that it would feel this good. There's no way I'm coming down from this high for a week probably. I don't even know what to say, it feels so good. It's everything I thought it would be, and a lot more."

Moore started for Oran on the mound and collected all but one out in the game. The first three Santa Fe batters he faced reached base to load the bases in the top of the first inning, but just one run scored in the inning after Moore induced two groundouts before striking out the final batter of the inning.

"We could have been down early there even more," catcher Alex Heuring said. "That was huge to get out of there."

The next inning had a similar theme. A bloop single, an error and a walk loaded the bases with one out. A single scored a run and Andrew Curry followed with a double that scored two runs. A third run looked like it would score on the play after the throw from the outfield glanced off Heuring's glove, but Moore grabbed it out of the air and rushed to tag a shocked Santa Fe runner out at home.

"You practice and preach all year long for four years to that group to be in the right spot, to back people up, do what you're supposed to do," Wood said. "The one out of 10 times that it happens, it works. Fortunately for us it was the one time in a state tournament. That was pretty fortunate for us."

Moore retired the next batter, and the score remained 4-0 until the fifth inning.

Oran entered the bottom half of the inning without a hit and ended it with eight runs.

"I never even thought of it," said Moore, who started the inning with a double into the right-center gap. "The first couple innings we hit the ball a little bit, not a whole lot, but we did hit the ball. We hit it at them, and they made plays. They did a great job of that. But, no, I was not aware at all of him having a no-hitter."

Heuring was intentionally walked following Moore's hit, putting two Eagles aboard with nobody out. The next batter was retired, but Bear Hicks was hit by a pitch to load the bases for sophomore Hunter Schlosser, who singled home two runs.

"[The count] was 2-2. I didn't want to strike out. I wanted to go down battling," said Schlosser, who paused to fight back his emotions. "I didn't want our team to go out like that. I definitely didn't want our seniors to go out like that. I wanted to go out in style and get a win for coach Wood and the team."

After a strikeout for the second out of the inning, Hicks scored on a throwing error on a steal of third base. Chance Tenkhoff, the No. 7 batter, then singled home Schlosser to tie the game at 4-4.

"I just get up there, had two strikes on me," Tenkhoff said. "I was just waiting for that fastball and just hit it."

Santa Fe starter Keaton Graf routinely hit 89-90 mph with his fastball, but he threw few offspeed pitches.

"He was definitely one of the harder throwers we've seen all year," Heuring said. "He struggled with the curveball, so we knew to sit fastball. His fastball had good life to it, but, hey, anybody can hit a straight fastball."

Graf, who walked seven batters and hit two, was relieved by Chad Tieman following Tenkhoff's hit.

Tieman walked Thomas Trankler and Ressel, and Tenkhoff scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch that moved the runners up a base. Moore then lifted a popfly just beyond the shortstop area that fell untouched between three players, scoring Trankler and Ressel. Heuring doubled, scoring Moore, to cap off the inning.

"It seemed like it happened in a blink, too, to me," Wood said. "I don't know about everybody else. It just really happened in a blink. But you know, I thought the kids did the same thing they've been doing. They stayed focused. Baseball's like that, it feeds off of it. That's baseball. That's what I love about it."

The eight-run inning veered the Eagles to an ending that eluded so many successful seasons that fell short of a championship.

"Unfortunately sports is based a lot on first-place trophies," Wood said. "For myself and for my program, we needed this. We needed this for myself and my program because we've had some good [teams], we've had some success, but for some reason life's a lot about first-place trophies.

"Honestly, I don't know if I would have thought a lot less about us because I think I've had a great run, I think I've had a great career, great players. I've seen a lot of them here today. They're good young men. They're in good professions. They've got good jobs. They're doing a lot of good things. That's what it's all about. But for me to say it doesn't matter, I'd be lying because it does matter -- in the world of sports especially."

As the players and coaches posed for picture after picture and received hug after hug from the many Oran fans who had traveled to watch the game, Heuring said he knew the title meant as much to many of the people watching as it did to the people in the dugout.

"It's not just about us and coach," he said. "It's about the whole town. This town, they travel with us, they've been through it. They wanted it just as much as we did, if not more. So really it's not really a state championship for us. It's just a state championship for the town. It means just as much to them as it does to us."

Santa Fe 130 000 0 -- 4 10 3

Oran 000 080 0 -- 8 6 2

WP -- Kody Moore. LP -- Keaton Graf. 2B -- Andrew Curry (S), Moore (O), Alex Heuring (O). Multiple hits -- Santa Fe: Wyatt Wilkinson 2-3, Chad Tieman 3-4, Graf 2-4; Oran; Moore 2-4, Tenkhoff 2-3. Records -- Santa Fe 13-4, Oran 22-5.