CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Ethan Walls had been here before, pitching for the District 5-AAA baseball championship.
This time he wasn't to be denied. The Ooltewah senior put the finishing touches on a 4-3 victory over tournament host Walker Valley with a strikeout of ever-dangerous Mustangs leadoff man Tucker Mendenhall.
"Tuck is the guy we'd want at the plate in that situation," Walker Valley coach Joe Shamblin said. "You have to give credit to Walls, not just on that at-bat but through most of the game.
The two will be paired with District 7 opponents, most likely Cookeville and Rhea County, on Monday for Region 3 semifinals with the winners advancing to Wednesday's region championship game.
Walls went into the seventh inning in last year's district final against Bradley County with a 3-1 lead, but the Owls couldn't hold it and eventually lost in extra innings.
"I was honored to get the opportunity," the lanky right-hander said. "I guess I had had thoughts of that game last year for the past year."
Walls gave up seven hits - three of them of the infield variety - but he also was touched by Brady Swafford for a run-scoring double in the sixth and Blake Peterson's long home run to left in the seventh.
That was as close as the Mustangs would get, though. Following a single to Caleb Lawhon, Walls cut him down on a sharply hit ball from Mason Oran. He got Jacob McCall to pop out to his catcher, Andy Reed, for the second out and then struck out Mendenhall.
"His pitching was fantastic," Ooltewah coach Brian Hitchcox praised. "Every time they got guys on, he was able to locate and get the strikeout or get somebody to pop up. I knew this was important to him and we were going to give him every opportunity to finish it."
Walker Valley went up 1-0 in the second on Jordan Munck's infield single, an unusual Ooltewah error and a passed ball, but Walls slammed the door with a flyout to second and two strikeouts.
The Owls countered with three runs in the third on RBI singles from Andrew Manning, Trevor Wiggs and Austin Spurgeon. The eventual game-winner came in the fourth. Reed, who twice flirted with home runs, banged a double off the center-field wall and his courtesy runner, Peyton Keiser, scored from second on a double play.
"I felt we had some more chances, but we had some good at-bats and put ourselves in situations to score," Hitchcox said. "To their credit their pitcher (McCall) made some good pitches and their defense made some good plays."
Walker Valley had feasted offensively offensively in winning its best-of-three series with Bradley Central to reach the final but was handcuffed more than once with runners in scoring position.
"We're a better hitting team than that - better than nine strikeouts. We got some hits but it seemed like he came up with the strikeouts in between," Shamblin said.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.