Oran wins convincingly (again) for trip to Columbia

ADVANCE, Mo. -- It won't be hard to find the Oran Eagles in Columbia, Mo., at the 1A final four next week -- just follow the trail of exclamation points.

On Friday, the Eagles took their final step in the quarterfinal round, and they laid down their final bit of punctuation.

It came off the bat of winning pitcher Trey Graviett, who launched a game-ending three-run homer over the left field fence to give the Oran an 11-1 victory over the Advance Hornets in six innings.

The Eagles also enacted the 10-run rule with a walk-off grand slam in Wednesday's 15-2 rout of Bernie, and it was their fourth consecutive run-rule win. Since the onset of the district tournament -- which began with a forfeit win over Richland -- Oran has outscored its opponents 57-9.

"All I have to say is watch out for Oran -- we're on a rampage," junior catcher Nathan Seyer said. "They better hope they can score, because we're gonna."

Oran (19-4) will take a 10-game winning streak into Wednesday's 11 a.m. semifinal at Taylor Stadium. The Eagles will have to wait for their opponent after Sparta (14-1) and Marion C. Early (17-5) had their quarterfinal postponed on Friday.

Graviett (7-3) struck out 12 Hornets and allowed just four hits. He gave up just one unearned run in the sixth inning with his team ahead 8-0 at the time.

"We had a rough first of the season, but now we're tearing it up," Graviett said. "State has been our goal all year. We've achieved it, now all we have to do is win it."

Graviett's homer was his third hit of the day and the Eagles finished with eight overall. In the one time he was retired, he sent a liner off the foot of pitcher Eric O'Hare that bounced in the air to first baseman Aaron Cantrell, who beat Graviett to the base.

"They've got a lot of firepower one through nine," Advance coach Jim Below said. "I hope they win it. "They're from Southeast Missouri and they deserve it."

The trip to state will be the fifth for Oran, but it will be looking for its first state title. The Eagles finished as high as second in 1998 and finished third in 1999, but the current group of juniors, the backbone of the team, had not won a district title until last week.

" We've been looking to go to state the last two years, but we came up short, thanks to St. Vincent," center-fielder Joey Bickings, one of seven juniors in the lineup, said. "This year it feels like it is the year."

Oran coach Mitch Wood has seen the junior group coming along for years.

"There's a lot of expectations for this bunch as far as baseball and basketball," Wood said. "It's a good set of athletes. Right now they're doing a good job and hopefully they'll continue to do a good job."

The Eagles removed the Hornets' stinger early with four runs in the first inning -- with the help of two errors -- and never let Advance into the game. Oran added single runs in the second and fourth innings and chased O'Hare in a two-run fifth. O'Hare struggled with his control, issuing seven walks and allowing five hits in 4 1/3 innings before yielding to Cantrell.

After getting out of the fifth, Cantrell retired the leadoff man in the sixth, but gave up a single to Bickings and walked Tyler Cookson before surrendering the home run to Graviett.

"The beginning of the year we weren't hitting the ball as well, but right now we're really hitting the ball hard," Bickings said. "Trey is coming on strong."

jbreer@semissourian.com

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