BEAUREGARD — Kyle Brown kept looking into the Beauregard dugout.
He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. Even after giving up back-to-back singles and with the tying run on second base, the Hornets starting pitcher wasn’t coming out of the game.
“He wanted to finish,” Beauregard head coach A.J. Kehoe said.
And he did.
Brown struck out the final Chilton County batter after working to a full-count with runners on first and second to give Beauregard the Game 2 win, 5-4, and a sweep into the second round of the Class 5A state playoffs.
Beauregard (29-8) won the first game of the doubleheader, 13-3, in six innings.
“The thing was, Kyle’s pitch count was good, and he felt good,” Kehoe said of his decision to leave the junior right-hander in the game, despite giving up two runs in and three hits in the final half inning. “He’s got a lot of poise.”
And the 6-foot-4 hurler showed it, putting the Hornets in another home best-of-three series next Friday against Tallassee.
Beauregard and Brown entered the seventh inning with a 5-2 lead. Brown had given up just four hits so far and was cruising. But after walking the first batter and giving up a single to the next to put runners on second and third with no outs, Brown’s control started to waver.
He forced a fielder’s choice that scored a run, then a sacrifice fly that put that put the tying run at the plate with two outs. Then came the back-to-back base hits. Action in the bullpen was already buzzing.
Then came the last look into the dugout. And then, finally, the last out.
“We felt he could overpower that last batter,” Kehoe said. “And he did.”
Chilton County took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second of the second game on a double by Trey Henley.
But centerfielder Hayden Hillyer tied the game with a 9-iron in the top of the fourth, golfing a shoe-top pitch over the right-field fence to open the frame. The Hornets would tack on two more runs in that inning to take a 4-2 lead.
Then in the seventh, a double by Cody Weems plated Hillyer for a 5-2 advantage. Beauregard left he bases loaded to end the seventh or it could have been more.
The Hornets ended the first game early, when an error off the bat of Chandler Guy plated Drew Brown for a 13-3 victory. That run capped a five-run sixth for Beauregard, as Weems highlighted the onslaught with a three-run home run to left field with one out.
Kyle Brown finished the first game 2-for-2 at the plate with two RBI and two runs scored, while Tyler Cofield was 2-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored. Guy had two hits, two RBI and two runs scored in the first game as well.
Beauregard will host Tallassee next Friday with the start time yet to be determined.
mszvetitz@oanow.com | 737-2513
Read Mike Szvetitz's blog here.
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