BENTONVILLE -- Rogers Heritage made the most of its opportunities to take down defending Class 7A state champion Bryant in the first round of the state baseball tournament Thursday afternoon at the Tiger Athletic Complex.
The War Eagles scored four unearned runs, aided by three Bryant errors, and never trailed in a 6-3 victory.
7A State Baseball Tournament
Rogers Heritage 6, Bryant 3
Heritage^110^011^2^—^6^10^1
Bryant^001^020^0^—^3^4^3
Murphy and Lamproe; Knight and Breeding.W-Murphy, 6-2. L-Knight, 6-2. Sv-None. HR-None.
Heritage (17-10), the No. 5 seed from the West, advances to take on conference rival Bentonville, the No. 2 seed, in the quarterfinals at noon today.
The War Eagles snapped a 3-3 tie with an unearned run in the sixth and two more in the seventh, and that was enough for senior left-hander Kacey Murphy (6-2). The Arkansas signee allowed three runs (one earned) on four hits. He struck out 10 and walked two.
Murphy out-dueled his future Arkansas teammate Blaine Knight, who was named state tournament MVP a year ago. Knight (6-2) allowed all six runs (two earned) in six innings of work. He allowed 10 hits, struck out eight and did not walk a man.
Dane Olsen made Bryant pay for an error with an RBI double in the seventh to make it 5-3 and another crossed on Macauley Sams' bases-loaded walk.
Heritage coach Keith Kilgore said his team came up with key plays offensively and defensively, and Murphy did the rest.
"We had a plan, stuck with it," Kilgore said. "We hit some balls hard early. I'm just very proud of the way our kids came out of the gate offensively. They had the right approach, the right mindset.
"We took advantage of their mistakes, but that's the game at this point. Kacey Murphy, again, he's such a competitor. He got the lead late and he's gonna pound the zone and make you swing the bat. It was just a quality win against one of the premiere programs in the state and even on a national level."
Murphy also went 2-for-3 with a double and drove in a run, while Logan Easley and Dylan Qualls chipped in two hits each for Heritage.
Bryant coach Kirk Bock said the Hornets (28-3) simply got outplayed.
"We just didn't play well enough to win," Bock said. "We had good effort, good attitude, but we didn't play well. It happens. I think our two teams are very comparable. It's just they played better than we did today and that's baseball.
"No excuses. We just didn't make the pitches. We didn't make the plays."
Bryant, which had a 13-game winning streak snapped, tied the game 3-3 in the bottom of the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Drew Tipton and a squeeze bunt by Brandon Warner.
Dylan Hurt accounted for two of Bryant's four hits, while Warner drove in two runs.
Sports on 05/15/2015