EVENSVILLE, Tenn. — Zach Stephens figured a hitter could get awfully hungry on a steady diet of breaking pitches and changeups, so the Soddy-Daisy slugger continued to wait for a fastball.
His patience paid off when the Tennessee Tech signee poked a walk-off, two-run homer over the left-center-field fence to give the Trojans a 5-4 win over Bradley Central and Bears standout pitcher Cole Brand in the District 5-AAA baseball tournament Saturday.
“He had thrown me a lot of breaking balls, and I was sitting on a fastball,” Stephens said. “I always sit on fastballs.”
That fastball, the only one in a hittable spot that Stephens saw all afternoon, left the field in a hurry and gave Soddy-Daisy the lead in its best-of-three series with the Bears.
Walker Valley stunned regular-season winner Ooltewah 7-4 to take a one-game lead in the other semifinal series. The teams will resume play at Rhea County on Monday with Bradley facing Soddy-Daisy at 5 p.m. and Walker Valley meeting Ooltewah at 8. If Saturday’s winners win again Monday, they’ll play their single championship game Tuesday. If not, the championship game will be Wednesday.
Walker Valley, which had to win two single-elimination games to get into the semifinals, took a 3-0 lead, fell behind by a run but regained the lead for good with two runs in the fourth inning. Houston Spencer got the win and Brandon Zajac and Chris Caffrey contributed two RBIs apiece.
Brand has lost twice in 11 starts and was denied his ninth win on Soddy-Daisy’s rally. Taylor Dalton, known more for his glove than his bat, got the Trojans within a run at 4-3 with a two-run homer in the sixth. With two outs, Blake Stewart beat out a slow-rolling grounder to short and advanced to second on a throwing error. Stephens, who was 0-for-3, then provided the game-winner with his 14th home run of the season.
“I had been struggling and I finally connected,” he said.
The first two hitters he saw connected for hits off Brand, which led to Soddy-Daisy’s first-inning run, but the Clemson signee allowed only one more hit through the fifth. By that time he had a 4-1 lead and appeared to be cruising.
“I felt like I had lost my team from the second through fifth innings but then found them in the fifth and sixth innings,” Soddy-Daisy coach Jared Hensley said. “In between I think I broke a bucket and a couple of water bottles.”
The game matched aces — Brands and the Trojans’ Andrew McWilliams — and the Bears chased McWilliams in the sixth.
“Andrew didn’t have his best stuff but he gutted it out, kept us in the game and gave us a chance,” Hensley said.