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The Bearkats belted two home runs in a seven-run fourth-inning eruption and Purke did the rest with 15 strikeouts to help No. 8-ranked Klein post a 7-2 win over Belton in the opener of their Class 5A area-round baseball playoff series Thursday night at Tiger Field.
To keep its season alive, Belton (26-6) must record a doubleheader sweep Saturday at Klein (24-4), starting with Game 2 at noon. The series winner will advance to the 5A Region II quarterfinals to face Georgetown or Klein Collins.
“This is why you play three games,” Belton coach David Tidwell said.
Tigers starting pitcher Jacob Phillipe had an uncharacteristically rough outing. The senior right-hander, who notched a pair of wins over Pflugerville with solid outings on back-to-back days in last week’s first round, struggled with his control from the start.
After getting out of early scrapes with the help of junior catcher Justin Dechert - who threw out would-be base stealers in each of the first two innings - and a bases-loaded fly ball to end the third, Phillipe (7-1) never made it out of the fourth.
Three walks, a single and a wild pitch had already let in one run before leadoff hitter Tyler Boss drilled a 2-2 pitch over the center-field wall for a grand slam.
Phillipe issued one more walk and Sam Landis added a two-run homer off reliever Nick Wright before the inning ended, but the slam had essentially sealed the Tigers’ fate.
“Jacob hasn’t looked like that since the first game he pitched all year,” Tidwell said. “He walked eight guys and you can’t do that with the big guys they’ll bring up.
“It was just mechanics. He was falling off the mound a little bit. But I’m not going to fault Jacob. He’s the one who got us here.”
Klein totaled only five hits - three of which came in the fourth - but Purke held Belton to just two.
The hard-throwing lefty, who has been a member of two USA Junior National Teams, hit his only true rough spot in the second.
After striking out Seth Alcozer to start the inning, Purke hit Cameron Arnett, balked, hit Paul Wilson, then threw a pair of wild pitches to allow Arnett to slide home with the game’s first run.
Phillipe then flicked a single past second baseman Patrick Stanley to drive in Wilson for a 2-0 lead.
Without a visit from Bearkats coach Barry Smith, Purke answered by fanning Dechert and Brett Hernandez to start a string of eight consecutive strikeouts.
“He can work through things because he’s pitched in a lot of big games, having been on the Junior Olympic team for two years,” Smith said. “He pitched in Mexico last year and had 20,000 people from Mexico hollering at him. He said he didn’t know what they were hollering, but he knew they were hollering at him.
“So he’s been in situations like the second inning. And realistically, I don’t know if there’s anything I could go out there and tell him.”
Purke’s string of strikeouts ended in the fourth with Wilson’s infield single. He struck out only one batter in the fifth but fanned four of the last seven he faced to end it.
“You can’t win very many games when you strike out 15 times,” Tidwell said. “That means the other team only has to make six plays.”
For his part, Wright settled down after giving up Landis’ shot, retiring the next seven Bearkats in order. Arnett worked the seventh and gave up one hit.
“They only scored in one inning,” Tidwell said. “If you had told me before the game that we would hold them to one inning, I would have said we’d win the game.”
NOTES: Belton’s starting pitcher for Game 2 will be sophomore right-hander Dillon Newman (9-1). . . . Klein’s probable starter is 6-6 senior righty Kevin Sirchia (5-1).
edrennan@temple-telegram.com