RINGGOLD, Ga. — In a situation that called for experience, Ringgold High School baseball coach Drew Walker admits he was fortunate to have a group of seniors ready to respond.
Tied at one game each with playoff nemesis Columbus, and 3-3 heading into the bottom of the fifth inning of the deciding game of their GHSA Class AAA quarterfinal best-of-three series at Bill Womack Field, the Tigers were one out from letting consecutive scoring opportunities get away.
Instead, seniors Sam Crew and Brady Hermann answered with back-to-back RBI singles to key a four-run inning en route to a 7-5 win.
Ringgold (30-6) will host Savannah Christian in a doubleheader start to a best-of-three semifinal series Saturday.
"We finally got them!" Walker said after defeating the Blue Devils for the first time in four playoff series over the last 11 years. "We had failed a few times in key situations lately, including the inning before, but our seniors really stepped up in that fifth inning. That was huge, especially when they rallied in the next two innings."
Crew, who has been the team's closer, came on in relief of starter Jackson Black in the third inning and went the next four frames, allowing one earned run on six hits with six strikeouts.
"Jackson has been great for us, but we felt he didn't have his best fastball today, so we went with Sam earlier than usual and he was phenomenal," Walker said. "We knew we had Ross (Norman) and Sebastian (Haggard) if we needed them to close it out, so we just told Sam to go as long as he could as hard as he could."
The Tigers, ahead 3-2, got consecutive singles from Crew and Hermann to start the bottom half, but Columbus starter Jack Peak got out of it. The Blue Devils then tied it in the fifth on Jake Courville's two-out RBI single. After an intentional walk to red-hot cleanup hitter Andrew Wells — not the last one of the game — Crew struck out Mason Schoonover to keep the game tied.
Ringgold then broke through against Peak on the big two-out RBI hits from Crew, Hermann and sophomore Black, but Columbus got one back in the sixth as Crew began to tire.
Norman, the team's ace who fired an 88-pitch no-hitter in game one, came on to close in the seventh, but the visitors greeted him with a leadoff double and RBI single from Courville. Walker again elected to intentionally walk Wells, even though it put the potential tying run on base.
"That was our main goal, to not let that kid beat us," Walker said. "If they beat us, good for them, but he wasn't going to do it. If somebody else hits a go-ahead bomb, good for them, but that kid is a phenomenal hitter, so it was already determined we weren't going to pitch to him with runners on."
The strategy worked as Norman settled down to get a flyout and two strikeouts to end the threat and secure the semifinal berth.
"For him to get out of that was big for his confidence," Walker said of Norman. "He didn't have everything in the tank, obviously, but he was able to regroup and shut them down.
"Columbus is a very good baseball team, a tremendous program with tremendous tradition, so we knew it wasn't going to come easy. They are going to throw punches until you get back up, and we did today."
Hermann, Crew, Cade Tankersley and Norman had two hits each for Ringgold, while Courville had three of Columbus' 13 hits.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com.