Rivals Bell City, Oran meets in the C1D2 title game

Bell City and Oran will meet in the Class 1 District 2 championship game on Tuesday, May 16, at 4 p.m.

The semifinal games were moved from Oran High School to Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau due to rain.

Bell City (7-13) advanced by defeating Leopold 9-1 in the semifinal round. Freshman Kale Richardson threw 6.2 innings and struck out 14 batters.

"I just had the curveball working," Richardson said. "The fastball was getting a little wild, getting a little up, but I had to find it and just had to execute pitches where they needed to be and react to the batter."

Richardson also hit the only double of the game for Bell City. He and battery mate, junior catcher Easton Newell, led the Cubs with three hits.

"We have really good chemistry," Richardson said. "He's caught me long enough that he knows what I want to throw and when I want to throw it. We trust each other."

Leopold (4-12) scored its only run on an error in the first inning. Fred Brandel and Josh Horrell got the only two hits for the Wildcats.

After that, it was all Bell City, who had 14 hits in the game.

The Cubs won three straight state championships from 2015-17, but since then they only had one winning season.

That district, and much of Class 1 for that matter, belonged to Oran (16-4). From 2011-22, the Eagles won eight district titles, appeared in six final fours, and won the state title three times. The only years Oran didn’t win was during Bell City’s three-peat.

“Bell City has always been our arch nemesis,” Oran coach Joe Bickings said. “We know it's going to be a battle.”

With the 13-3 win over Delta (6-17), Oran enters the district title game on a six-game winning streak, in which the Eagles have outscored opponents 51-10.

An RBI single by Luke Peterson highlighted a three-run first inning for Oran. Kole Burger added another run for Oran with an RBI single in the second inning.

Delta loaded the bases in the fourth inning and scored three runs on base hits by Austin Keys and Paxton Hornbuckle.

Oran struck back in the bottom half of the fourth inning with four runs off of Delta's miscues. Parker Bryant, Nic Massey, and Burger powered a five-run fifth inning to trigger the run rule for the Eagles.

"I think we kind of got a little lackadaisical there early on, and just probably thought we were going to come out and just get hits and score 20 runs," Bickings said, "but in the game of baseball, sometimes that doesn't happen."

There is a possibility that Tuesday’s title tilt will also be moved to Capaha Field.