The postseason baseball seeds for District 6-4A are set following Tuesday’s action, as the Brownwood Lions secured the No. 2 spot with a 10-0 victory over the Glen Rose Tigers in the home finale at Morris Southall Field.
The victory for the Lions (19-8-1, 8-3) is their second over Glen Rose (16-10-1, 7-4) in district play, which gives Brownwood the tiebreaker edge regardless of the outcome of Friday’s regular season finale.
“We knew what was at stake when we went to work over the bye week,” said Lions head coach Brian Harris. “We worked on some things and we came out here and tonight and put on a show. I told the guys right before the game tonight, and it was the only thing I told them, if y’all don’t have some fun tonight, we’re going to have some problems. They laughed and relaxed a little after that and came out and executed. I was really proud of them. All in all it was a very good team win and I’m proud of them for locking up second place tonight.”
Stephenville (17-12-1, 9-2) wrapped up the District 6-4A championship Tuesday with its 10-0 win over Mineral Wells (6-19, 0-11), while Graham (11-14-1, 4-8) will head into the playoffs as the fourth seed from 6-4A.
Gavin Brandstetter tossed a two-hit shutout over six innings for the Lions with 11 strikeouts and one walk, and finished 4-for-4 at the plate with four RBIs. Catcher Logan Posey chipped in a pair of hits – including a solo home run and a double – and three RBIs.
“Gavin kind of did it all tonight,” Harris said. “He got some help from other guys at the plate for sure, but he got his change up going tonight. He threw that and got a few pop ups, got a few swings and misses and got some guys to swing over the top of it. And then at the plate his was 4-for-4 with four RBIs, so you can’t help yourself anymore than that.
“And Logan was back in the lineup tonight and I was so, so proud of him and the work he’s been putting in. He’s been so hard on himself over the last month trying to figure some things out. The kid just went to work, it was all him and he deserves all the credit for that. He decided he needed to change a few things and you saw what he produced tonight with a ball over the center field fence, then he has two walks and finishes it off with a double and two RBIs.”
The Lions finished with a dozen hits as other offensive standouts included Owen Huntsinger with a triple and a single; Austin Wright with a double and two RBIs; Case Markham with a double; Antonio Ybarra with a single and an RBI; and Taylor Bessent chipped in a single as well.
Brownwood grabbed a 1-0 lead with one out in the bottom of the second inning as Posey launched a solo blast over the center field fence.
The lead grew to 4-0 in the fourth inning as Posey drew a leadoff walk, Markham doubled with one out, Ybarra followed with a bloop RBI single to right field, and Brandstetter ripped a two-RBI single into right field.
The Lions tacked on four more runs in the fifth inning as Huntsinger led off with a triple, Posey walked for the second time, and Markham was plunked with one out to load the sacks. With two down, Wright ripped a two-RBI double to left field and Brandstetter followed with a two-RBI single to right to increase the advantage to 8-0.
Brownwood’s final two runs crossed the plate in the bottom of the sixth as Bessent led off with a single, Huntsinger followed with another hit, and Posey doubled both runners home to enforce the 10-run mercy rule.
Tuesday’s contest almost marked ‘Senior Night’ for the Lions.
“We’ve got a group of seniors that we honored before the game and they show up like clockwork everyday at 3 p.m. and they know it’s time to go to work,” Harris said. “We have 10 seniors and when I got here in 2019 we had four or five. The guys that are seniors now were freshmen when I got here and they’ve stuck it out and they’re the backbone of our program. They know the coaching staff and exactly what we need from them and they take control.”
