Oran returns to familiar spot

STE. GENEVIEVE — A trip to the Class 1 final four is all in a season's expectations for the Oran baseball program.

But for this year's group of Eagles, it was sweeter to earn that trip with a beat down of the team that denied them in last year's quarterfinal round.

"We wouldn't have it any other way," Oran senior Cody W. Dirnberger said after the Eagles thumped host Valle 13-3 on Wednesday afternoon. "We're glad they made it this far and that we got our revenge. That felt great."

Oran's season ended last year when Valle rallied from a 4-0 deficit with five runs in the fifth and sixth innings. The Warriors celebrated the 5-4 win on Oran's field and ended the Eagles' 13-game winning streak.

And for the Eagles, lately, sitting home from the state playoffs is more unusual than going. They've gone to the final four five times in the last seven seasons, missing out only last year and in 2005, when Advance won the district title.

Still, some of the Eagles take nothing for granted.

"After last year, you're never sure if you're going back," Oran junior Jayden Pobst said.

"We're tickled to death to be there," Oran coach Mitch Wood said. "You can never get enough of them."

Wood had been philosophical after his team's 12-4 sectional win against Cooter on Monday.

"The bottom line in baseball is once you get past the district, you have to have a little luck and play good baseball," he said. "If you don't do one of the two, you can get beat by anybody."

Oran committed four errors Wednesday with all of them playing a part in Valle's scoring, but the Eagles accepted nine walks and benefited from Valle's six errors.

Now the Eagles, who never have won a state championship in all their trips, are assured of something different in this year's final four trip. The games will be played at Meador Park in Springfield for the second straight year.

"I haven't been to Springfield," Oran senior Alex Chasteen said. "My sophomore year, we went to Columbia. Now in my senior year, getting back to state after getting beat by them last year feels good.

"There's nothing we want more right now than a state championship."

The first obstacle is 18-2 Stoutland, a team Oran beat 3-0 on April 27 to win Stoutland's tournament. Pobst pitched a one-hitter with four walks and 13 strikeouts to win that one.

"We probably played our best game of the year to beat them," Wood said.

He said he could throw Pobst again. Or he might throw Chasteen, or Steven Dooley.

"If they beat Stoutland twice in a year," Cooter coach Allen Crawford said Monday, "they need to be in the state finals."