River Bluff sweeps Lexington to win 5A Lower State title

Having to win two games Wednesday night wasn’t a problem for the River Bluff baseball team.

The Gators scored 10 runs in the second inning on their way to an 11-0 run-ruled win over Lexington in the Class 5A Lower State championship.

River Bluff forced the deciding game with a 8-2 win in the opener to advance to its first state championship in just the fourth year of the program.

The Gators will host Northwestern on Saturday in game one of the best-of-three championship series.

“I knew had a bunch of battlers,” River Bluff coach Mark Bonnette said. “And I felt good today. The players said they wanted to take two jerseys because they knew they were going to play two games. We’ve got a great group of seniors, and that is what it is all about. They are the lifeblood of the program.”

The 10 seniors were part of the school’s B team as eighth-graders and helped the Gators to back-to-back region titles the past two seasons.

Bonnette credits the seniors for keeping things together following Saturday’s 10-7 loss to Lexington in the first game of the Lower State tournament. But River Bluff defeated Dutch Fork, 5-4, and then defeated its rival twice.

The Gators, who went 4-1 against the Wildcats this year, outscored Lexington 18-0 over the final 10 innings Wednesday.

“You’ve always got to have faith in our dudes because we have come through all year,” third baseman Aaron Adams said. “This is what we trained for and what we work so hard for. I am so proud of everybody.”

Adams, one of those 10 seniors, got things going in the deciding game with a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the first inning.

River Bluff put the game away in the second as it sent 14 batters to the plate and scored 10 runs to lead 11-0. Victor Kelly and Alex Urban each had two hits in the inning with Kelly driving in three runs on a bases-clearing double.

Kight did the job on the mound. The senior right-hander allowed just four hits and allowed just one runner in scoring position.

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 11:06 PM with the headline "River Bluff sweeps Lexington to win 5A Lower State title."