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Defensive drills first - no exceptions.
And thanks to that defense, the young Eagles’ Class 2A state championship defense still is alive.
“We pride ourselves on defense,” Rogers coach Craig Coheley said. “We’re going to catch the ball and keep ourselves in games.”
Rogers used a strong defensive effort and Dylan Kuehn’s complete-game pitching to finish off its area-round sweep of No. 10-ranked Hallettsville with a 2-0 win Saturday afternoon at Nelson Field.
The Eagles (26-8) advanced to the 2A Region IV quarterfinals for the fifth straight season and will battle No. 2 Lexington (25-4-1) - which it swept in the same round last year - in a best-of-three series at Nelson Field or Bastrop.
The series will begin at 7 p.m. Friday and resume with Game 2 at 5 p.m. Saturday, with Game 3 to follow 30 minutes after the end of the second game if needed.
The Brahmas (20-6) had base runners in every inning, yet the Eagles were able to escape each time without any damage.
Three momentum-killing double plays and a runner thrown out at home plate helped senior Kuehn (6-3) throw his second straight playoff shutout. He allowed six hits, struck out two batters and walked three.
“The defense was out there backing me up,” said Kuehn, who helped Rogers win its 10th consecutive playoff series. “It was a big game. I just stepped it up.”
It wasn’t as easy as Kuehn’s four-hitter in Game 2 of the Eagles’ bi-district series against New Waverly.
Kuehn struggled at times to get his curveball over, but he made big pitches - and got even bigger defensive stops - when he needed it most.
“I can’t say enough about the game that Dylan Kuehn pitched,” Coheley said. “He battled tough all day long.”
Kuehn worked his way into a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the top of third inning.
In a scoreless game, any hit to Nelson’s deep alleys was likely to score a pair.
But Hallettsville’s Jon DeLaRosa hit a groundball right at shortstop Gregory Mendoza, who stepped on second base and threw to first for the inning-ending double play.
The Eagles turned another double play in the sixth to escape a one-on, no-out jam and ended the game on a double play in the seventh.
“We work on those cuts every day . . . the throw to each base,” catcher Dustin Hamilton said. “It all pays off in a big game like this, all that hard work we do.”
Moments after turning the Eagles’ first double play, Mendoza smacked an RBI single to left field to give Rogers a 1-0 lead.
Hallettsville threatened to answer in the fourth with a runner on second and two outs. Tyler Bludau hit a single to right, sending Chad Bujooch, who singled two batters earlier, on his way to score the tying run.
Right fielder Travis Perkins didn’t figure Bujooch would try to score, but he fired a relay throw to Hamilton at the plate just in case.
The throw was perfect. Hamilton tagged out Bujooch before he even reached to step on the plate, preserving the 1-0 lead.
“I knew it was there the whole way,” Hamilton said. “I was right on the line and I knew he was hosed because Travis had a real good, fast throw. Just a fabulous throw by Travis.”
Rogers added an insurance run in the sixth on Hamilton’s RBI single to left.
Hamilton entered the area-round series in a slump after batting 2-for-13 against New Waverly. But after a big triple in Game 1, he started to regain his confidence.
“I’ve been struggling for a while, but I’ve had my coaches tell me, ‘Swing hard and do what you’ve been doing,’” he said. “I just went up there with the mindset that ‘I’m going to do this. I’m not going to strike out.’”
Just as important, Hamilton’s 2-for-6 weekend against Hallettsville makes the Eagles tougher up and down the order.
“What he’s giving us is a little punch down at the bottom of the order,” Coheley said. “That’s something you need if you’re going to keep advancing in the playoffs.”
Despite returning little playoff experience, the Eagles say they’re unfazed by this postseason run.
“We weren’t expecting to lose at all,” Perkins said. “We’re a pretty confident team, so we think we’ll be all right through the playoffs."
rschneider@temple-telegram.com