ASHLAND -- The Blair Oaks offense came to life and Wil Libbert bounced back from his second career loss.
Those two things added up to a perfect opportunity for the Falcons to get their long-awaited first win of the season, and it came against the defending state champions.
Blair Oaks sent 11 batters to the plate in the top of the first inning, Libbert struck out 11 batters and the Falcons knocked off the Southern Boone Eagles for an 8-2 victory Tuesday night in Tri-County Conference play at Southern Boone High School.
“Finding a way to win was huge,” Blair Oaks coach Mike DeMilia said.
The Falcons lost each of their first four games, with three coming against Class 4 state-ranked programs. The fourth time was the charm against the Class 4 No. 1 Eagles.
“Our guys were ready,” DeMilia said. “We’re sitting at 0-4, we’ve taken it on the chin, we’ve seen a bunch of good pitchers. We know we’re better than that.”
Blair Oaks’ first seven batters reached base to start the game.
Nolan Laughlin drew a seven-pitch walk, Aiden Boeckmann singled to left field and Libbert walked to load the bases. The next batter, Warren Davis, fouled off two pitches with two strikes before blooping an RBI single into shallow center field to give the Falcons a 1-0 lead.
“We’ve struck out a lot this year so far,” DeMilia said. “For him to just poke the ball out there, it doesn’t have to be pretty. For a freshman to come up in that situation and get a big hit, that really got us going.”
The next batter, Justin Atnip, drove the first pitch he saw into the left-center field gap, clearing the bases to extend the lead to 4-0. Atnip went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and four RBI to lead the Blair Oaks offense.
“He’s coming off an injury from football, so he’s still getting back into the swing of things,” DeMilia said. “He put three or four good swings on balls tonight.”
Evan McCullough, pinch-running for Atnip, scored on a sacrifice fly by Chase Schnieders to give Blair Oaks a 5-0 lead before Southern Boone came to bat.
Southern Boone coach Brian Ash said the four walks allowed in the top of the first led to a self-inflicting inning for the Eagles.
“Two good innings for them, two very bad innings for us,” Ash said.
Brayden Beckmann took over for Blaine Hargis on the mound in the second inning for the Eagles. Atnip hit an RBI double and Holden Brand and Schnieders hit back-to-back RBI singles to widen the Falcons’ lead to 8-0.
“We knew that five (runs) wasn’t going to be enough,” DeMilia said. “It ended up being enough, but you have to assume it isn’t.”
Beckmann settled down and did not allow another run until he exited the game with two outs in the top of the seventh. He finished with no walks and five strikeouts in 5⅔ innings of relief.
“Part of it was because he was rushed into the game a little bit, he had been catching,” Ash said of Beckmann’s improvement on the mound following the second inning. “… After that second inning, he gave us zeros across the board. I was really proud of him.”
Libbert set the tone in the field for the Falcons, retiring the first eight batters he faced. In his first start last Tuesday, Libbert gave up six unearned runs in two innings against Boonville
“Wil wasn’t good in his first outing, but he’s allowed to not be good all the time,” DeMilia said. “He’s still a high school kid. Tonight, he was really good in the first three innings, struggled in the fourth and hung in there.”
Carter Salter had the only hit for Southern Boone against Libbert, lifting a low pitch on a 3-2 count into shallow right field in the third inning.
“I told the guys they’re not going to see a guy like Wil, except for when they see Wil,” Ash said.
Libbert was relieved with two outs in the bottom of the fifth after throwing 78 pitches, 48 for strikes.
“We want to start him out at a certain number, and then each outing, we try to do 15 more (pitches),” DeMilia said. “He was around the 75-pitch mark and that’s where we wanted to stay. In his next start, he’ll go a little bit longer.
“We do that with all our pitchers, not just Wil.”
Cody Pickett took over on the mound for Libbert. Tristan McKee lined a two-run double up the middle in the sixth inning and Beckmann followed with a single to load the bases with two outs.
The Eagles were one pitch away from turning the lineup over to the top of the order, but Pickett got a strikeout to end the inning and keep the score at 8-2.
“Cody got himself into a little trouble, he was a little nervous,” DeMilia said. “To make a couple big pitches there at the end was huge.”
Pickett struck out three batters and walked two in 1⅓ innings of relief. Brand pitched a scoreless seventh inning, striking out one to close the game for the Falcons.
“We were a couple hits away from making this game really interesting,” Ash said.
Caiden Sanford added a pair of singles for the Falcons. Austin Evans and Chase Morris each singled for the Eagles’ remaining hits.
The loss snaps an 11-game winning streak for the Eagles, dating to the start of last season’s district tournament.
It was also the second straight night Southern Boone played a district opponent, beating Fatima 4-2 on Monday.
“It was a big win last night, being down 2-0 against a really good Fatima team,” Ash said. “These back-to-back games are always tough. Realistically, if you told me we were going to come out of this with a split, you’re going to be OK with that.”
Blair Oaks still has regular-season games left against district foes Fatima and Fulton, but beating Southern Boone is a good start for its future district seeding.
“There’s a good chance we’re going to see them again, and it’ll be a bigger game if we see them a second time,” DeMilia said.
Blair Oaks (1-4, 1-1 Tri-County), which is receiving votes in the Class 4 rankings, hosts Class 5 No. 9 Camdenton at 5 p.m. today in a makeup game.
Southern Boone (5-1, 1-1 Tri-County) plays Thursday at Centralia.
In Tuesday’s JV game, Southern Boone defeated Blair Oaks 7-3 in five innings.
Jackson Woodward had three hits and three RBI for the Eagles. He was also the winning pitcher, striking out five batters in 3⅓ innings.