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Madison baseball drops Conference 35 final, still advances to Region 2A East tourney

Central-Woodstock rolled into Madison County on Friday night and collected their third win of the week, and with it, the Conference 35 Championship trophy.

 

“We came here and we wanted it,” said Central coach Sean Semones, as his squad earned a home game in the next round with an 11-0 victory. “Hats off to Luke [Estep], incredible game at the plate and on the mound. That defense behind him played solid ball. We were reading the ball off the bat, making good plays out there.”

 

Estep, a junior lefthander, scattered three hits over six scoreless innings as the Falcons stymied a Mountaineer offense that had tallied six runs in their semifinal, and often put the ball in the air with solid contact.

 

“We hit a lot of hard balls tonight,” said Madison coach David Londrey. “It’s disappointing that you square the ball up like that all night long and it goes right at guys, but that’s baseball.”

 

The game was scoreless through two before trouble began as Central shortstop John French singled to start the top of the third. With a runner in scoring position after a fielder’s choice and stolen base, a grounder to shortstop triggered a throwing error that allowed Jared Rice to score from second. Then, Estep helped his own cause with a triple to deep right field that plated run number two. He scored on a subsequent groundout, putting the visitors up 3-0.

 

“We were all feeling it like we have for the past few games,” said Estep, who finished with a game-high three hits. “He gave me a good pitch to hit and I made a good swing.”

 

The Mountaineers went quietly in the bottom half and the Falcons picked right back up in the fourth. After a leadoff walk and sac bunt, a grounder to shortstop resulted in another throwing error which scored the base runner. With two out, leadoff man Rice singled to extend the rally. Catcher Mason Marston then sent another grounder to shortstop which invited a fielding error to load the bases for Estep, who singled to right field and scored two more runs.

 

“You’ve got to put the ball in play and put the pressure on them,” said Semones, as Central opened a 6-0 lead. “We did and they came up and threw the ball around. That happens in high school games. Certainly the unearned runs helped, but we also had a lot of clean RBI hits.”

 

Chris Smith settled things on the mound for the Mountaineers after moving over from shortstop in relief of Hunter Smith with two outs in the fourth. He extinguished the two-on, two out fire, and then breezed through the fifth and sixth, striking out two while allowing just one hit and one walk.

 

However, Estep and the Falcon defense suffered no letdown during the middle innings. In the bottom of the fourth, right fielder Jonathan Miller singled to the right of second base for Madison’s second hit of the game, but he was stranded on first after a pop-out right of first base and a fly-out to deep center. The side was retired on three groundouts in the fifth. Strikeouts sandwiched a double to right-center by Chris Smith in the sixth, and the threat ended with a flyout to right.

 

“That backdoor breaking ball was great; when [Estep] throws it for a strike, he’s tough to beat,” Semones said. “He had them fooled all night. They squared up a couple pitches, but for the most part he had complete control of the game.”

 

In the seventh, Central got things going again with a leadoff grounder to shortstop that ended up as the fifth error of the night for Madison. The Falcons would send nine batters to the plate, scoring five more runs on five hits to dispense any thoughts of a rally. Sam Shifflett pitched the last frame for Central, allowing a walk and a single but maintaining the shutout thanks to a diving grab in left field by Jonathan Baker.

 

“The errors hurt; we gave up the first seven runs unearned,” Londrey said. “We couldn’t recover from them. We tried; we hit the snot out of the ball, it’s just they didn’t fall. The upside, though, is we’re still playing.”

 

Madison (10-12) will travel to Conference 36 champion Stuarts Draft for a noon game on Monday, while Central (10-13) hosts Page County.

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