Cooter halts dream playoff run

~ Oak Ridge managed one hit in its 6-0 state quarterfinal loss.

COOTER -- Oak Ridge's best chance to score some runs against Cooter pitcher Logan Edwards came in the fourth inning when its first two batters reached base by drawing walks.

Edwards, however, struck out Ethan Sachs, Cody Myers and Logan Mangels in order to end the threat and keep the Blue Jays off the scoreboard.

"He threw well," Sachs said about Edwards. "During the beginning, he struggled and had some walks. It looked like he was overthrowing, but he settled down and hit his spots."

Edwards overcame some early control problems to throw a one-hit shutout as Cooter beat Oak Ridge 6-0 in a Class 1 state baseball quarterfinal Wednesday.

Cooter advanced to the Class 1 final four in Springfield while Oak Ridge finished with a 13-7 record after making its first quarterfinal appearance in school history.

The only hit the Blue Jays mustered came when Jacob Light stroked a fastball into left field for a single with two outs in the seventh.

"He threw a split-fingered fastball," Oak Ridge No. 3 hitter Stephen Wright said about Edwards. "That really threw us off. We haven't really seen that all year. And the grass infield really stopped the ball when we'd get a roller up the middle. It slowed the ball down. He also had a decent fastball, so it was just hard to hit him."

Sachs started on the mound for Oak Ridge. He went five innings and gave up all six runs on eight hits. He struck out 10.

Cooter took a 1-0 lead in the first inning and increased its advantage to 2-0 in the second.

Cooter put its leadoff hitter on in both the first and second innings. The leadoff hitter was sacrificed into scoring position and eventually scored during both frames.

Oak Ridge coach Jason Niswonger was impressed with the way Cooter used sacrifice bunts to manufacture runs early, something his team has not done often this spring.

"We've been struggling with the bottom of the order and we go over bunting in practice all the time and we just struggled with it," Niswonger said. "It makes all the difference in the world. ... I'm not ashamed of our effort at all today because if you look back over their record, they're 23-1. Their one loss was to a very good Valle Catholic team and I think we battled them for the full seven innings today. We didn't give them anything."

Cooter put its leadoff batter on base in four of the five innings that Sachs pitched and scored three times.

Parker Watkins homered to lead off the fifth inning as Cooter went ahead 3-0. Sachs struck out the next hitter, but he walked the following two, who both later scored.

Cooter pushed across four runs in the fifth to take a 6-0 advantage. Niswonger replaced Sachs with Wright to start the sixth inning.

"Most of their top order ... could hit the ball well," Sachs said. "Like my coach was saying, they stick to baseball and they are a baseball school just like Oran. ... I felt like I was throwing good today. There may have been a few calls here and there that I thought I should've had, but you come and you pitch and you get what you give."

Oak Ridge had other chances to score besides the fourth. Garret Light walked to begin the game. Brett Thomas was intentionally walked in the first inning, but Edwards got a strikeout and two fly outs to end the threat. In the seventh, a catcher interference call, Jacob Light's single and a walk to Garret Light loaded the bases with two outs. But Edwards escaped by getting Dakota Zoellner to pop out to first.

"I threw a bunch of fastballs and I tried to hit my spots," Edwards said. "And my offspeed pitch was working good today."

Oak Ridge put together quite a run at the end of the season, qualifying for the quarterfinals for the first time and winning its first district title since 1993.

Wright, a senior, was glad to be part of the Oak Ridge team that broke a 0-5 sectional drought. Wright moved to the area from Rockford, Ill., before the school year.

"It was really exciting, especially because this was my first year at Oak Ridge," Wright said. "Getting this far and making school history was an honor."

Wright said he thinks the team has the talent to make a better run next postseason since the Blue Jays have a young team. Wright and Sachs were the only two seniors this year.

"The team started out all right through the beginning of the season and here at the end we came together and played well together," Sachs said.

Oak Ridge 000 000 0 -- 0 1 1

Cooter 110 040 x -- 6 8 1

WP -- Logan Edwards. LP -- Ethan Sachs. HR -- Parker Watkins (C). 2B -- Aaron McCaig 2 (C), Edwards (C). Multiple hits -- Cooter: McCaig 2-4, Watkins 2-4, Edwards 2-3.