Union County defeated Northeastern 8-5 to win the Class 2A Centerville Sectional on May 29.
CENTERVILLE, Ind. – There’s a legendary story about Babe Ruth calling his own shot in the 1932 World Series.
Union County’s Preston Scott now has his own version of the tale to tell as he helped the Patriots down Northeastern 8-5 to win the Class 2A sectional title at Centerville on Monday.
“You won’t believe me if I tell you,” Union County Head Coach Jeff Mathews said.
The Patriots led 3-0 with the bases loaded in the top of the fourth inning and Northeastern Head Coach Steve Bray went to the mound to make a change from Colton Alexander to Hunter Kirkland.
“They were changing pitchers,” Mathews said. “There’s a 1-1 count, they’re bringing Kirkland in. (Preston) walked down there and to (third base coach) Ron (Webb).”
“Ron says, ‘Listen, when this guy gets there, make him throw strikes,'” Mathews continued. “Preston literally said, ‘Nope. I’m taking him out, coach, I’m hitting this one out.’ Preston Scott doesn’t say stuff like that, he really doesn’t. Then he does it and then he comes running into the dugout and says, ‘Called it.’ Just nonchalant as all get out. That was huge, he hit it square.”
There’s still debate about Ruth’s historic homer, but Scott had a big grin when he discussed his first home run of the season.
“The third base coach told me to make good contact,” Scott said. “I was like, ‘All right, I’ll put one out.’ I let the first pitch go and he gave me another one right down the middle and I put it out, so that felt pretty nice.”
Although the game was far from over, the long ball proved to be too much for the Knights to overcome.
Union County (24-6) advances to the Park Tudor Regional on Saturday to face seventh-ranked Heritage Christian (18-4) at 1 p.m. Heritage Christian defeated Indianapolis Howe 10-0 to win the Triton Central Sectional on Monday.
“It feels great it’s been so long,” Scott said. “I thought we were going to do it my freshman and sophomore year, but we finally broke through this year, and it feels great.”
Northeastern got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth to make it 7-1.
After Union County added a run in the fifth, the Knights scored four times in the sixth to close the gap.
“Northeastern never quit,” Mathews said. “You didn’t expect them to, did you? I didn’t. They played pretty well themselves.”
Winners of 15 straight, Union County claimed its seventh sectional crown and first since 2012.
“It means a lot,” Mathews said. “The expectations are high at Union County, because we’re Union County.”
“Real excited for the kids,” Mathews added. “I thought we got maximum effort, we executed very well.”
Scott, Mook Shepler and Blake Fields all had two hits for the Patriots.
Alexander and Tanner Wilson led the Knights with three hits each, while Connor Bray drove in four runs.
Caleb Greene worked six innings for the Patriots to get the win with Mason Miller tossed the final frame to earn a save as the Knights left the bases loaded.
“Give Northeastern credit, they weren’t going to roll over,” Mathews said. “I knew they weren’t going to roll over and they fought. That’s a good baseball team right there. It’s a big deal, we go on to Indianapolis, we’ll see how it rolls.”
For the Knights (15-10), Alexander went three innings and Kirkland threw the last four.
Third-ranked Indianapolis Ritter (24-3) and Southmont (14-11) meet in Saturday’s opener in the regional at 11 a.m. The championship contest is at 8 p.m.