Bernie, Bell City to decided winner today

ORAN -- Bell City's Jeff Long stepped out of the batter's box shaking his head in frustration.

He took a vicious cut at a fastball at his knees and missed for strike two.

"I should have hit it," Long said.

When Oran pitcher Zac Chasteen delivered a full-count fastball up in the zone, Long didn't miss again.

He blasted a solo home run to left field to stake his team to a fifth-inning lead.

"It was a pretty big run," Long said.

It was the Cubs' lone hit in the game and all senior pitcher Melvin Johnson needed as he silenced Oran in a 2-0 victory in their Class 1 District 2 semifinal Tuesday. Bell City will face Bernie today at 4 p.m. in the title game.

Long provided the big blow, but Johnson threw a bunch of offspeed pitches to keep the Eagles guessing.

"The curveball was working and I was hitting my spots," Johnson said. "I just tried to hit my spots. If they hit it, they hit it.

"I was trying to pick my spots against certain guys. Just let them hit it on the ground and let my defense help me out."

Johnson struck out nine and scattered three hits over seven innings.

"Our hitting wasn't what it needed to be," Oran coach Mitch Wood said. "We only got a few hits. There are days like that. Their pitcher did a good job. He kept us off stride."

Johnson, who admitted his arm starting feeling tired in the fifth inning, faced a daunting task in the sixth inning. He allowed a two-out single to Tyler Heuring, allowing Oran cleanup hitter Jayden Pobst to step to the plate with a chance to tie the game.

Bell City coach Matt Asher decided to visit Johnson on the mound before facing Pobst.

"I feel real comfortable wherever he's at, whatever he's doing," Asher said of Johnson. "So I just went out there and told him, 'Look, we've got a 2-0 lead. We aren't going to back down.'"

Johnson said he couldn't repeat Asher's exact words, but paraphrased it with, "He told me to be a man."

Johnson jumped ahead 0-2 then delivered a fastball that Pobst hammered to center field.

"I thought it was gone," Johnson said. "He crushed it."

Asher couldn't believe that his senior pitcher left a fastball over the plate on an 0-2 count.

"You get him 0-2 and [Johnson] left a pitch right in the middle," Asher said. "You don't want to do that, but today it worked out for us."

Pobst didn't get enough of it as Cubs center fielder Jeff Long reeled it in a few steps in front of the wall.

"We had the right people up, we just didn't get the job done," Wood said of his team's missed opportunities.

Chasteen earned a one-out walk in the bottom of the seven, but Johnson got Mac McConnell to pop out to second then struck out Gabe Kielhofner to end the game.

Asher said the key to Johnson's success was his ability to throw his curveball for strikes.

"If we cannot throw our offspeed pitch for a strike, we're going to be in trouble," Asher said. "They're trained to hit fastballs. That's what they do. It's been Oran's staple for the eight years I've been here. If you see a fastball, rip it. Well, [Johnson] worked on a different curveball today. He threw a slower one, he threw a faster one. We threw a lot of junk at them and I think that kept them off balance."

Oran last failed to win the district title in 2005. While the Eagles entered the district tournament as the No. 1 seed, Wood said that likely was based more on history than this year's performance.

"I'm not going to say we didn't deserve the No. 1 seed, but when seeding the tournament, we probably weren't the best team in it," he said. "But you live off history a little bit. After a while though, you've got to step up and do something about that. Right now, we're just young."