Jackson Burns struck out 12 and held Liberty Christian to just one run as Southwest Christian advanced to the Championship game with a 2-1 win over the Warriors. The Eagles will face Houston Second Baptist for the TAPPS Division II State Title on Tuesday.
Southwest Christian got their runs in the bottom of the 1st. Burns led off the inning with an infield single. Wyatt Averhoff went in to courtesy run. Two walks later and the bases were full. Joshua Blanco hit a ground ball to the shortstop that score Averhoff and Jackson Kale also scored on a throwing error on the play. Southwest Christian led 2-0.
Liberty Christian picked up a run in the top of the 4th when Zach Drew doubled home courtesy runner Caleb Ruiz cutting the Southwest Christian lead to 2-1.
After that Burns kicked into another gear. The Texas Tech signee struck out the side in both the 5th and 6th inning mixing in the curveball and keeping Liberty Christian batters off balance. Liberty Christian did makes things interesting in the top of the 7th.
Burns walked the first batter in the inning and struggled to handle a Drew bunt down the 1st base side putting runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. Tyler Little bunted to sacrifice the runners over to 2nd and 3rd with one out. But Burns got his 12th strikeout on the night and then got a fly out to end the ballgame and sending Southwest Christian to the championship game.
Burns gave up 1 run on 5 hits with 1 walk and 12 strikeouts. He was named the THSB TAPPS Division II Semifinal Game MVP.
“We’ve worked so hard for this,” Burns described. “I’m so proud of us and everything we’ve done. This is the best feeling ever. We’ve lost two years in a row in the regionals and we’ve finally broken through. Now we’re ready to go win this thing.”
“Jackson Burns! Man he was really good,” Head Coach Rusty Beam related. “He’s wanted this for a long time. He’s been all about us this year and leading this team and he definitely led us tonight.”
“Every game in district has felt like a playoff game this year. Even teams that didn’t make the playoffs are competitive so we will go out tomorrow knowing it’s going to be another tough, exciting, competitive game for us. We’ve gotten the wins at the right time lately and fortunately we get to keep playing.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E | |||
| Liberty Christian | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 | ||
| Southwest Christian | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 2 | 3 | 2 |
