Scott City baseball reaches district final

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Scott City pitcher Eric Urhahn has made a habit of finishing the games he starts.

"That's what we see from him every time," Scott City coach Jim May said. "Eric's going to come out, and he's going to throw his guts out for you. He's thrown I can't tell you how many complete games this year. He's thrown three two-hitters, and he's taken some tough losses. But he's an outstanding player and a good pitcher."

Urhahn navigated around errors and nine Kelly hits to lead his team to a 9-3 victory in a Class 3 District 2 semifinal Monday afternoon at Hillhouse Park.

"That's always big," said May about Urhahn's complete-game performance, which preserved the Rams' staff. "He's done it -- his last four starts he's thrown complete games, I believe. He's not a strikeout pitcher. He's a groundball pitcher, which makes it even more imperative for us to catch the ball, but he kept the ball down and got outs when we needed outs."

The top-seeded and defending champion Rams will face Clearwater for the championship at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Hillhouse.

Scott City starter Eric Uhrhan pitches to a Kelly batter during the seventh inning in a Class 3 District 2 semifinal game Monday in Charleston, Mo. Uhrhan pitched a complete game as the Rams advanced to Wednesday’s final against Clearwater. (Fred Lynch)

Kelly scored all three of its runs in the third inning when a lead-off hit and two consecutive errors loaded the bases. Levi Alsup singled home two runs before he was inexplicably caught in a rundown between first and second. The next batter walked and Brenton James' single gave Kelly a 3-1 lead before Urhahn induced a 6-4-3 double play on a low fastball to end the inning.

Urhahn said he wanted to "stay calm and get a groundball for my team," after the errors.

"We kind of talked about it and just tried to get them fired up again and into the game, but it's all on them," May said. "When we catch the ball, we play pretty well. That's what I always tell them. We usually pitch well and we usually hit well. When we catch it we do all right."

While Urhahn, a senior, took care of the work on the mound, it was sophomore Trent Pobst who did the most damage at the plate for the Rams.

Pobst, who was 3 for 4, singled home a run in the first and doubled to lead off the fourth inning. After a strikeout, No. 7 hitter Andrew Short singled and No. 8 hitter Dylan Menz recorded an RBI hit to make it 3-2. No. 9 hitter Hunter Copeland bunted and reached on a fielder's choice -- the Hawks committed a throwing error at third on the play that scored the tying run -- before Isiah Berry singled home two more runs to give the Rams the lead for good at 5-3.

"They just made a good adjustment on our pitcher," Kelly coach Josh Eftink said. "He throws kind of a lot of off-speed pitches and they were out in front of him the first time through, and the bottom of the order made a good adjustment on the second time facing him."

Scott City added four more runs in the sixth inning, including two on a single from Pobst following an intentional walk to Zach Carlyle that put runners on first and second with two outs. First base was open before the walk.

"I was kind of shocked that they walked Carlyle to pitch to him, but Trent's a good hitter," May said. "He played last year as a freshman when we made our run and won our district title, and so he's got a little more experience at this than a lot of them so he really stepped up and hit the ball well today."

Kelly had a hit in all but two innings and put a runner on in every inning except the sixth. The Hawks stranded eight runners.

"The whole game we hit the ball hard," Eftink said. "There toward the end of the game, we hit the ball hard right to people, too. It was kind of the luck of the draw in the game on that."

Scott City improved to 14-11, while Kelly finished its season 7-14.

"I'll just leave them with all kinds of little things throughout the game make a big difference," Eftink said. "We've got a young group -- a lot of freshmen and sophomores and one junior, so we're a very young group. They can take away from that, learn from it, get experience from it and come back next year."

Kelly 003 000 0 -- 3 9 4

Scott City 100 404 X -- 9 11 3

WP -- Eric Urhahn. LP -- Kaden Robert. 2B -- Trent Pobst (SC). Multiple hits -- Kelly: Robert 2-3, Levi Alsup 2-4, Brenton James 2-3; Scott City: Pobst 3-4, Andrew Short 2-4.