Eight in 12th

YORKTOWN — Fans had to wait an extra hour and a half from the original start time to watch the fourth consecutive installment of Patriots v. Trojans in the sectional opener.

The Patriots have dropped the last three tournament installments, but got the better of the Trojans during the regular season.

As the teams headed into extra innings for the second consecutive year, the Patriots needed some players to step up if they wanted to avoid getting walked off for the third straight season.

Aiden Phillips took up the mantle on the mound.

The hitters struggled to support him, with only two base runners from the seventh through 11th innings. When Brady Jetmore got a second life to lead off the 12th, he did not waste it. The rest of the order followed suit.

The Jay County High School baseball battered New Castle in the 12th inning to pick up a 10-2 victory in the IHSAA Class 3A Sectional 24 opener hosted by Yorktown in a game that started at 9 p.m. Wednesday and finally came to an end at 1 a.m. Thursday.

The win advanced the Patriots (11-14) to Wednesday’s semifinal game against Delta, which beat Connersville 7-0 in Tuesday’s first semifinal. It marked Jay County’s first postseason victory since the 2019 season.

“We broke through and that’s all that matters,” said JCHS coach Todd Farr. “I’m extremely proud of this group. They battled from the first pitch to the last pitch and I don’t know if we could do that early in the season.”

Before the 12th inning began, the public address announcer informed those in attendance that it would be the final inning of the night. If the game remained tied, it would have been suspended and restarted early Wednesday evening.

In the first at bat of the inning, Jetmore swung and missed and fouled off another pitch to go down 0-2. On the third pitch, he attempted to lay down another bunt, which rolled foul and should have resulted in an out. An error by the home plate umpire gave Jetmore another life as he determined the count was 1-1 prior to the pitch.

He did not waste the free life as he watched two more balls go by before smacking a double to center field.

“It was pretty valuable,” Jetmore said of the extra opportunity and the double that followed it. “He gave me a second chance. I took it and got in the box and took a deep breath. I wanted to get out of here and win this game. … It was hype and I was happy to get that run in.”

Back-to-back errors by Arrington Murray at third base got Jetmore home to score what would be the winning run.

However, the Patriots weren’t satisfied with one run. After a fielder’s choice for the first out, the next seven batters reached base safely, including RBI singles from Carter Fugiett, Drew Schemenaur and Phillips and RBI walks from Geesaman and Byrum. In all, Jay County scored eight runs in the inning on four hits, two walks and three errors.

Farr was concerned that he had made his own error earlier when he decided to call for a squeeze bunt with two outs in the sixth inning.

The Patriots had two of the first three batters reach base by getting hit with pitches before Joe Geesaman was intentionally walked with two outs to put Brady Jetmore at the plate. Jetmore got his second bunt attempt down and beat out the throw for an RBI single that tied the game 2-2. Farr tried his luck at another squeeze play, but Gavin Byrum didn’t get the bunt down and Grant Wendel broke too far down the baseline to retreat, getting tagged out at home.

One run would have been enough for Phillips, who followed Kade Sommers and A.J. Myers on the mound, finishing the seventh inning and getting through the eighth with little trouble.

Geesaman made a big defensive play in the ninth inning as he crashed a bunt attempt and slid to his knees to catch the ball for an out. The first baseman then relayed the ball to Wyatt Foster who got it over to Gavin Byrum for an out at second when the runner didn’t tag up.

As well as Phillips pitched to that point, he got fired up after the 10th inning. He got the first two batters out on a popup to Geesaman and a groundout to Foster before a walk and  a shallow fly blooper to left put runners on second and third. On the next pitch, Phillips got Jayden Sticco to fly out to end the inning. As the JCHS junior returned to the dugout, he found his coaches and simply  demanded, “Leave me in,” which Farr and pitching coach Josh Atkinson fully intended to do.

“The guys always have my back,” Phillips said. “They have confidence in me and I have confidence in them on defense. So I was like, ‘Leave me in. I want to win this.’ Last year we struggled with that, so I wanted to stay in and get the job done for this team.”

Only one more runner reached base on Phillips via an error as he closed out the game to earn the win in 5 2/3 innings pitched, in which he surrendered zero runs on two hits and two walks.