Notre Dame baseball stymies Perryville to move on to district championship

Notre Dame center fielder Ben Womack's timing was impeccable on Monday afternoon.

The sophomore left the ground at just the right second to make a spectacular diving catch in right center, robbing Perryville's Aaron Mueller of an extra-base hit to lead off the top of the sixth inning in a Class 4 District 1 baseball semifinal at Notre Dame.

The catch, which came on the heels of the Bulldogs' plating a pair of runs in the previous inning, preceded the Pirates loading the bases with two outs before another fly out to Womack stranded them. It was fourth-seeded Perryville's best of few chances in top-seeded Notre Dame's 4-0 victory.

"That was probably as big or bigger than scoring the two runs with him making that play and giving us momentum to ride through," Notre Dame coach Jeff Graviett said of the catch. "That's a kid we knew was capable of making those plays. You've got to keep telling yourself he's only a sophomore, but he's starting to make strides out there and figure it out in the outfield. Just a tremendous play and a big lift anytime you get something like that in the postseason."

Perryville coach Jeff Steffens called it a "game-changing play," that left his team "snakebit again."

He estimated that Mueller, his No. 9 hitter, would've gotten to third on the play with his speed if the ball had gotten past Womack for just the second hit of the game against Notre Dame starting pitcher Tyler Essner.

Instead Essner issued a one-out walk, gave up a two-out single down the third-base line and his second and final walk to load the bases before escaping.

The Pirates recorded just three hits in the contest. Trent Steffens led off the game with a single up the middle, Kameron Fears singled in the sixth and Mueller hit a two-out double off reliever Ross Essner in the top of the seventh.

"We were out lunging at the pitches a lot and swinging at pitches that we couldn't handle and getting ourselves in a hole," Jeff Steffens said.

The only other base runners were via an error by Ross Essner to lead off the fourth and a one-out walk in the seventh.

"I just thought he came out there and threw strikes," Graviett said of Tyler Essner, who picked up the win. "He came out there and even when he got behind 3-0, 2-0, it looked like he was pounding back in with strikes and I think a lot of that was our defense. They hit a couple balls hard and we made a couple nice plays in the first and I think he just got a lot of confidence in those that they were behind him, so he just came at the hitters today. One of his better outings in the last few weeks, for sure."

Notre Dame, which finished with seven hits, scored two in the bottom of the first inning. Ross Essner sent the first pitch off starter Trent Unterreiner's foot for an infield single, stole second, took third on a groundout and scored on a flyout in shallow right just inside the foul line.

Trevor Haas drew a two-out walk and Nick Lindsay was hit by a pitch before Jake Edwards hit an RBI single to left center to put ND up for good at 2-0.

The Bulldogs, who stranded a runner on third in the third, tacked on two more in the home half of the fifth. Womack, who went 2-for-3, led off with a single to right and was bunted to second before Ross Essner and Winston Welter each drew walks.

Garrett Siebert launched the first pitch he got to left center for a two-run double that made it 4-0.

"Anytime you get a win at this point in the year you'll take it and go," Graviett said. "I thought Tyler threw the ball really well. I was really worried. I thought Perryville had a nice, scrappy team, so I thought it was going to be a tough game today. 2-0 game, I wasn't feeling too good about it so those two runs late were huge for giving us a cushion and allowing us to relax and finish it off."

Perryville wrapped up its season at 14-13. The Bulldogs improved to 16-9 with the win.

"You're proud of them. You're filling in a spot where you're replacing 12 guys last year, seniors that graduated, so you're basically starting all over," Steffens said. "You're pleased to coach them, you're pleased with the effort they gave you throughout the course of the year. Saying that we'd be 14-13 at the end of the year is an accomplishment for us putting everybody in brand new, so overall I think it was a good season for us but disappointing at the finish here."

The defending Class 4 state champion Bulldogs advance to the district title game, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Notre Dame. ND will face either Kennett, which was a 16-2 winner over Doniphan in the other semifinal Monday.

"We just keep finding ways to win," Graviett said. "That's kind of how we started the year. We started the year out 7-1 and it wasn't doing nothing real flashy, we were just finding ways to win. It seems like here the last few weeks we're just kind of doing the same thing -- not really just tearing the baseball up or dominating on the mound, but just finding ways to keep winning. Hopefully we can carry that over for the next few weeks."

Perryville 000 000 0 -- 0 3 1

Notre Dame 200 020 X -- 4 7 1

WP -- Tyler Essner. LP Trent Unterreiner. 2B -- Aaron Mueller (P), Garrett Siebert (ND). Multiples hits -- Notre Dame: Ben Womack 2-3; Perryville: Mueller 2-2.