LISBON — Lisbon’s huge third inning broke a scoreless tie and broke open its Class C South quarterfinal baseball matchup with Oak Hill on Friday.
The top-seeded Greyhounds plated 12 runs in the third, propelling them into the regional semifinals with an 18-0 win in five innings over the eighth-seeded Raiders.
Unbeaten Lisbon (18-0) will host fifth-seeded Monmouth (14-4) in the semifinals on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Hunter Brissette pitched all five innings for the Greyhounds on Friday, tallying eight strikeouts and allowing only one hit.
“I felt dialed in, I felt great all morning. I got on the mound and the energy was there,” Brissette said.
After only recording one hit in the first two innings, the Greyhounds’ offense exploded in the third, turning three doubles, four singles and five walks into a dozen runs.
Aiden Parker led things off with a single to center field, and Ethan Brown followed with a well-placed bunt single that advanced Parker to second. Brissette then started the scoring with an RBI single.
Three batters later, Nick Ferrence doubled to deep left field, driving in two runners and giving the Greyhounds a 4-0 lead. That was the first of three two-run hits in the frame. Brown, in his second at-bat of the inning, drove in two more runs with a single to center, pushing the lead to 8-0, and Mason Booker capped off the inning with a two-run double.
Ferrence and Booker each drove in another run during the third-inning barrage, Ferrence on a single and Booker on a sacrifice fly. Jack Ramich brought a run home with a double, and Caleb Phillips walked twice with the bases loaded.
All nine Lisbon hitters came to the plate in the bottom of the third, and eight batters had two at-bats.
“It’s a huge confidence boost for the whole team, especially doing it against a very good pitcher in (Kyle) Delano,” Greyhounds coach Randy Ridley said.
Ridley added: “We’ve been hit or miss up and down the order. We’ve had days where the beginning part of the order hits well and the end of the order doesn’t, and we’ve also had the opposite.”
Lisbon continued its onslaught with six runs in the fourth inning, highlighted by two-run doubles from Levi Tibbetts and Ramich.
Brissette finished off the Raiders in the fifth, inducing a double play and then getting a strikeout for the final out to secure the win and the Greyhounds’ return to the C South semifinals.
Oak Hill’s lone hit was a double to right field by Ethan Vattaso in the top of the fourth, but he was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple on a dart by Ramich.
The Raiders made five errors, and coach Chad Stowell said their miscues were difficult to overcome.
“We had opportunities to make plays and we just didn’t make them,” Stowell said. “Once the snowball starts to roll, it gets bigger. The snowball got pretty big in that third inning, and we weren’t able to stop it.”
Saturday’s semifinal between Lisbon and Monmouth is a rematch of last year’s regional final, which the Mustangs won 5-0. The Greyhounds won the teams’ only meeting this season, 5-4, on May 6.
“It’s going to be a battle, pure a simple,” Ridley said. “It’s going to be the team that, in my opinion, makes the least amount of mistakes. Will come out on top. That’s the key.
“They’re coming around with hitting the ball all the way up and down their whole lineup, and they’re doing a great job. They’ve got some very good pitchers and they play great defense. So, it’s going to be a battle, pure and simple.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
