CALIFORNIA - The Blair Oaks Falcons weren't in the mood to share Monday night.
The Falcons already had a share of the Tri-County Conference championship clinched, but they were able to withstand a rally by the California Pintos to prevail with an 8-6 win in nine innings to take the conference title outright.
Monday's victory gives Blair Oaks a 7-0 record in Tri-County play, finishing one game ahead of Southern Boone. The Falcons' last outright conference baseball championship came in 2017.
"It was nice to finish it off," Blair Oaks coach Mike DeMilia said. "We knew this one was going to be tough. In this conference with California, Boonville, Southern Boone and Hallsville, to beat all of those teams in one season is a pretty good accomplishment.
"It's not our end goal, but it's something we can hang our hat on."
Blair Oaks led 6-0 through four innings, but California answered by scoring five runs in a span of eight pitches during the bottom of the sixth inning to make it a ballgame again.
"We were pretty lackadaisical once we got a lead," DeMilia said. "We thought we were just going to coast, and before we know it, they put three or four hits together. Not our best effort, but not a terrible effort, either."
California was down to its last strike in the seventh when Tagen Higgins blooped a single into shallow right field. Lucas Ash was running on the 3-2 pitch from first base, and a misplay on the ball in right field allowed Ash to beat the throw and tie the game at 6, forcing extra innings.
"We need to have some tough games like that to prepare us," DeMilia said. "I would have rather won 8-0, but the fact we had to go extra innings will probably help us down the road."
Blair Oaks left two runners in scoring position in the eighth. The Falcons left a total of 16 runners on base in the nine-inning contest.
"You can't always control that in baseball," DeMilia said. "Sometimes, you're just going to do that. Every game, we're getting baserunners. The majority of the time, we're getting enough hits to score a bunch of runs."
In the top of the ninth, Dylan Hair reached on an infield single and Lane Libbert was hit by a pitch for the third time in six plate appearances.
The next Blair Oaks batter, Hayden Salmons, singled into right field. DeMilia gave Hair the stop sign as he made his way toward third base, but Hair ran past him and scored standing up to give the Falcons a 7-6 lead.
"I should have sent him," DeMilia said. "I got a little nervous because there were no outs, and Reid (Dudenhoeffer) and Wil (Libbert) were coming behind him. I didn't want to make an out at the plate.
"But Nolan was chucking, and it was the right call by him. He's fast."
Blair Oaks added an insurance run later in the ninth, when Wil Libbert stole second base and Lane Libbert scored easily from third on the overthrow into center field, making the score 8-6.
Cade Stockman retired three of the fourth California batters he faced in the bottom of the ninth to finish off the win.
Wil Libbert's RBI double in the first inning gave Blair Oaks a 1-0 lead. The Falcons batted around the order in the third, scoring three runs to build their lead to 4-0.
Dudenhoeffer and Ian Nolph added RBI singles in the fourth to give Blair Oaks its six-run cushion.
"We definitely outhit them," DeMilia said, "but when you string them together like they did, you score runs in a hurry."
With two outs in the sixth inning, Trevor Myers hit an RBI single up the middle, scoring the Pintos' first run. Two batters later, Ian Peterson hit a two-run single to center field, then Hunter Berendzen belted a two-run double into right-center. Just like that, the Pintos had the tying run in scoring position.
Blair Oaks starting pitcher Josh Isaacs has been cruising through five shutout innings, allowing just two hits prior to California's big innings. Isaacs escaped further damage by getting his eighth strikeout of the game to end the sixth.
"His numbers will not do his performance justice," DeMilia said. "He was really good, he didn't walk a guy.
"They hit a few balls hard on him, and then he left some balls in the middle of the plate, and they swing the bats pretty well. It's unfortunate it's not going to look as good as it was."
Stockman allowed the tying run to score in the seventh for a blown save, but the Blair Oaks senior retired seven of the last eight hitters he faced to earn the win in relief, walking two and striking out three.
"He gave up the run in the seventh, but I was proud of the way he hung in there and pitched two shutout innings in the eighth and ninth," DeMilia said of Stockman.
Nolph reached base in all six plate appearances, finishing 3-for-4 with two RBI. Wil Libbert also had three hits and two RBI, while Hair and Salmons each had two singles.
Higgins went 3-for-4 to lead the Pintos, while Berendzen had a pair of doubles.
Myers pitched the first four innings for California, walking two and striking out two. Ethan Bloch walked one and struck out one in two innings of relief, while Higgins pitched the last three innings, walking two and striking out two.
Monday's game was a postseason preview between the Tri-County rivals, as No. 2 Blair Oaks and No. 3 California will meet in the Class 4 District 8 semifinals May 19 in California.
"It'll be a little different scenario," DeMilia said. "They'll probably have a different pitcher, we'll have a different pitcher. But we weren't holding anything back. We'll be ready to go next week, for sure."
Blair Oaks (22-4), ranked No. 3 in Class 4, will play at 5:30 p.m. today against Jefferson City at Vivion Field.
California (18-8, 3-4 Tri-County), which is receiving votes in Class 4, is off until next week's rematch against the Falcons.
Notes: The baseball team is the eighth Blair Oaks program to win a Tri-County regular-season conference championship during the 2020-21 school year, joining the softball, volleyball, boys cross country, football, boys basketball, boys golf and girls track and field teams. "We're blessed there," DeMilia said. "We have great support from the parents, the administration and we have a lot of athletic kids. We get everybody's best shot on most nights, so for all the sports to do that is pretty special."