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After squandering two opportunities, the Klein Bearkats finally broke through and made them pay.
No. 8-ranked Klein belted two home runs in a crucial five-run fifth inning en route to a 9-8 win Saturday afternoon that completed a sweep of a Class 5A area-round baseball playoff series and ended Belton’s season.
“I thought we came out and started strong in what we wanted to do,” said Belton coach David Tidwell, whose team advanced to the second round for the first time since 2005. “We made some critical baserunning and fielding mistakes and we left a couple pitches up. You just can’t do that against a good team.”
Belton finished 26-7, tying a school record for the second-most wins in a season behind only its 35-6 4A state championship team of 1994.
Klein (25-4) advanced to the Region II quarterfinals to play Georgetown, which rallied from a 6-2 deficit Saturday to beat Klein Collins 9-8 for a series sweep.
With Belton leading 6-4 in the fifth, Tigers pitcher Nick Wright, who relieved starter Dillon Newman after one inning, hit Aaron Smith. A single by Jason Hanzel, sandwiched between a groundout and flyout, put runners on second and third with two outs.
Wright had eluded trouble the previous two innings by getting out of a bases-loaded jam in the third and leaving runners on the corners in the fourth. But this time, a tiring Wright hung a curveball and Jason Mohn smacked a three-run home run, his second homer of the day, to give the Bearkats a 7-6 lead.
“He couldn’t get his curveball over,” Tidwell said. “I went out to him and said, ‘This is the season right here. I need you to throw some great pitches right here.’”
Added Klein coach Barry Smith about Mohn’s two-homer, five-RBI performance: “They were big for us. We probably don’t win that ballgame if he doesn’t do that.”
Hoping to stop the rally there, Belton third baseman Jacob Phillippe threw wildly to first. Sam Landis, who hit a two-run homer off Wright in Klein’s 7-2 win at Belton on Thursday, took Wright deep again for what turned out to be two valuable runs, pushing the lead to 9-6.
“We’ve been able to continue fighting and they don’t seem to push the panic button,” said Davis, whose team overcame a 4-0 first-inning deficit. “They jumped out on us, we came back, they jumped on us again, and we just kind of stayed the course and I was real proud of them for being mentally tough enough to do that.”
Sensing the kill, Davis sent out Bearkats ace Matthew Purke to end the series.
Purke, a junior left-hander who struck out 15 batters in the Game 1 win and has been a member of two USA Junior National Teams, ran into some unexpected trouble.
Belton’s Shane Hoelscher singled to left and Garrett Vail hit a two-run homer to trim the lead to 9-8 with one out in the sixth. Purke then plunked Cameron Arnett but eventually picked him off to end the Tigers’ final threat.
The Tigers led 6-4 in the second but couldn’t extend the lead. With runners on first and second and one out in the second, Paul Wilson flew out to right and Seth Alcozer struck out.
In the third, Belton’s Justin Dechert doubled and moved to third on Phillippe’s single with no outs. But Brett Hernandez struck out and Hoelscher hit into an inning-ending double play.
Vail led off the fourth with a single but courtesy runner Buck Lopez was picked off by Patrick Stanley, who earned the win by pitching three innings of scoreless relief.
“We had our opportunities early again when we were two runs up, but once again we couldn’t get the key hit,” Tidwell said.
Vail went 3-for-3, just missing a triple for the cycle, and hit his second homer of the year. Kevin Thornton went 3-for-4.
The Tigers will lose nine seniors - Wilson, Phillipe, Nick Shelburne, Thomas Pare, Arnett, Brett Malcik, Jeremy Curran, Josh Spiegelhauer and Lopez - from a squad that had one of Belton’s most successful seasons in school history.
Even though just Wilson, Phillipe, Arnett and Lopez played in Saturday’s final game, Tidwell said the group definitely will be missed.
“They didn’t complain and they always came to practice and busted their tail,” Tidwell said. “They helped us in the dugout and where we needed it. They showed a model to those young kids of what to do if they don’t get to play. That’s all you can ask from seniors.”
cmeister@temple-telegram.com