| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E | ||
| Lutheran South | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 4 | |
| Second Baptist | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
Lutheran South Academy built an early lead they never relinquished and answered every threat on the way to a 3-2 victory over Houston Second Baptist in the TAPPS Division 2 Regional Semifinal. Lutheran South will now meet Ft. Worth Christian to play for the Division 2 State Championship.
Lutheran South jumped out to their early lead in the top of the 1st. Marcus Cantu walked and Brycen Gilbert singled to put runners on 1st and 2nd. Jaylen Walker followed with another single but Cantu was thrown out at home trying to score. Troy Gonzalez then tripled scoring both Gilbert and Walker and Gonzalez was thrown out trying to score on a bad throw. Gonzalez was injured on the play and had to be taken out of the game. Lutheran South ended the inning with a 2-0 lead.
Second Baptist got one of the runs back in the bottom of the 1st. Jirius Khoury walked, advanced to 2nd on a Logan Santos walk, stole 3rd, and scored on an error. It was 2-1, Lutheran South.
Lutheran South picked up another run in the top of the 4th. Wyatt Powell walked and was bunted over to 2B. Courtesy runner Bryce Symms came in and scored on an error by the right fielder. Lutheran South led 3-1.
Once again Second Baptist cut Lutheran South’s 2 run lead to 1 in the bottom of the 4th. Will Newhouse singled and later scored on an Austin Fuhrman RBI single. That made the score 3-2 in favor of Lutheran South.
Wyatt Powell continued his steady work on the mound and gave up no runs to Second Baptist in the 5th and 6th innings. After hitting his pitch count limit at the end of the 6th inning, David Corona came in and shut down Second Baptist to save the 3-2 victory. Powell pitch 6 innings, giving up 2 unearned runs on 4 hits and 4 walks while striking out 6. He was named the THSB State Semifinal MVP.
“This was an exciting night for me,” Powell stated. “I’m blessed to be able to be here again after undergoing an injury and surgery last summer. Tonight I just wanted to hit the strike zone as much as possible, let them hit the ball. And even with our errors, our defense made some big plays and did what they were supposed to do. It feels good to be back in championship. We have to stay humble and get ready for tomorrow.”
“We showed a lot of grit out there tonight,” Head Coach Aaron Schneider added. It was a wild first inning, losing our catcher, but we settled in. It was just a gritty win, We talked toughness all year. We talked about bending and not breaking. It’s kind of been our mantra going into the postseason. And I thought they showed that tonight. And Powell had a gritty effort on the mound. It wasn’t his best stuff, but he kept finding ways to get outs.”