Woodland baseball team outlasts Kelly 4-3 in 9 innings

When it was decided that No. 4 seed Woodland would play No. 5 seed Kelly in the opening round of the Class 2 District 3 baseball tournament, the teams' coaches openly shared their plans with each other.

"It's funny," Woodland coach Jason Crane said. "In the seed meeting, I told their coach, 'If we go 10, I'm throwing my guy 10.'"

Crane's guy is senior Neil Johnson, a power pitcher who will play for Three Rivers Community College next season.

"He said the same thing about his left-hander," Crane said about Kelly coach Josh Eftink's promise to stick with junior Ian Householder on the mound. "He said if we go 10, he's throwing 10. We almost did. We almost did that."

It turns out Johnson and Householder needed nine innings to decide a winner at Saxony Lutheran on Monday.

Fittingly, it was Johnson who got the winning hit off Householder in the bottom of the ninth inning to give his team a 4-3 victory.

"This is the first district win I've had in my whole high school career," Johnson said. "I'm really excited, and my team played really good. God helped us out today."

Johnson's shot to left field, which only was held in the ballpark by a strong wind blowing in from that part of the field, followed a leadoff walk by teammate Hayden Mayfield, who scored all the way from first.

"I was looking fastball and he threw me a fastball, and I got a hold of it," Johnson said. "As soon as I hit the ball, I knew that it had a shot of maybe getting out, but it ended up blowing in."

Woodland (8-9) advanced to face top-seeded Valle at 2 p.m. today while Kelly's season ended at 5-16.

"It was a great baseball game," Eftink said. "When it comes to districts, that's what you expect. Everybody's going to be throwing everything they've got out there, and Woodland's got a good one that they threw at us in Neil Johnson. He threw a heck of a game and the same with Ian for us. He threw a heck of a game, too."

Woodland scored once in the third inning and twice in the fourth to take a 3-0 lead despite its first two batters being retired in both innings.

The Cardinals scored on an error in the third, while leadoff hitter David Gray added a two-RBI single in the fourth.

"The bottom of our lineup got on today and really caused some trouble," Crane said. "We didn't bring around as many as we would've liked to have, but I like to see the bottom of the lineup and those young guys hit the ball."

Kelly managed just three hits in the game, but senior Shawn Heuring got one when the Hawks needed it most.

After Johnson walked the bases loaded and with two outs in the sixth inning, Heuring tripled to drive in three runs and tie the game.

"Starting off, I felt really good," Johnson said. "I was throwing strikes, trusting my defense -- they were good today -- but there near the middle I started to fade away a little bit, started to get tired.

"I lost control of my curveball a little bit. My curveball wasn't working out too well."

Heuring, he said, hit a hanging curveball. Johnson got out the next batter to preserve the tie but walked the bases loaded in the seventh inning.

"I've always been able to move on to the next person," Johnson said. "I don't really get that nervous, but I did get nervous there with the bases loaded."

He induced a popup to end the inning and seemed to get stronger from there, retiring six of the last seven batters.

Kelly 000 003 000 -- 3 3 3

Woodland 001 200 001 -- 4 8 0

WP -- Neil Johnson. LP -- Ian Householder. 3B -- Shawn Heuring (K). 2B -- Johnson (W), C.J. McAlister (W). Multiple hits -- Woodland: David Gray 3-5, Johnson 2-3. Records -- Kelly 5-16, Woodland 8-9.