MEXICO, Mo. - The St. Elizabeth Hornets were hoping they'd landed the knockout blow.
St. Elizabeth scored two runs in the top of the sixth inning to take a 5-4 lead in Wednesday's Class 1 baseball quarterfinal against the Wellsville-Middletown Tigers. But the Tigers ended up knocking out the Hornets, answering with two in the bottom half of the inning to take a 6-5 victory and claim a spot in next week's Final Four.
"They did an excellent job of putting the ball in play, hitting the ball hard and into the gaps," St. Elizabeth coach Nick Voss said. "You just have to give them credit."
Trailing 4-3 heading into the sixth, Ross Struemph and Aaron Blomberg singled on the first two pitches of the inning to put runners at first and second for St. Elizabeth.
After a pop-out on a bunt, the runners moved up to second and third on a groundout. Alex Goeller then walked before Nolan Heckemeyer singled to right-center to score Streumph and Blomberg to give the Hornets the one-run lead.
The Tigers then hit back-to-back singles of their own to start their half of the sixth. It looked like the Hornets were going to get out of the inning when they turned a liner to shortstop into a double play, but the Tigers then hit consecutive doubles to regain the lead at 6-5.
St. Elizabeth went down in order in the seventh.
The Hornets plated two in the top of the first inning. Coltin Green hit a one-out single and stole second. Mason Kemna was hit by a pitch before the two scored one out later on an outfield error.
After leaving four runners on through the first three innings, the Tigers broke on the board with four runs in the fourth. Wellsville had three hits, a walk and a hit-batter to go along with a wild pitch in the frame.
The Hornets got one of those runs back in the fifth. Heckemeyer led off with a walk and stole second and third before scoring on a groundout by Mason Kemna.
Ethan Burton went the distance to get the win for the Tigers, tossing a seven-hitter and giving up one walk. The sophomore wasn't overpowering, striking out just two. But he was stingy with his pitches, finishing with just under 80 in the game.
"If it's a pitch they like, I'm not against swinging early," Voss said. "But we got a little unlucky in some situations, we didn't execute at times."
Blomberg finished with three hits to pace a seven-hit Hornet attack.
St. Elizabeth (13-7) came up one game short of its goal this season.
"I thought we could be successful in the playoffs because I knew the type of guys that we had, their potential," Voss said. "I figured we would be ready to make a run at the end of the season, get to the Final Four.
"I believe we were a good enough team to do that, it just didn't go our way today."
Wellsville (10-11), which finished with 10 hits and had runners on in every inning Wednesday, will play La Plata (17-4) in the semifinals at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Car Shield Field in O'Fallon. Bell City (19-6) and Hurley (15-6) will meet in the other semifinal at 4 p.m. The third-place and championship games will be played Tuesday.