St. Clairsville Shuts Out Panthers, Returns To Regional Tournament

STEUBENVILLE — St. Clairsville is going back to the regional tournament.

The top-seeded Red Devils claimed a district title for the second-straight year, topping an 11th-seeded Buckeye Local team that came on strong at the end of the season and turned into the Cinderella story of the tournament locally, 6-0 at the Crimson Complex Thursday in the Division V, East 2 final.

The Red Devils, in the process, again reached the 20-win mark for a second-straight year.

“The kids were ready,” St. Clairsville head coach Tom Silva said. “I thought we had a good day practice (Wednesday) and we needed to be ready because we knew (Buckeye Local) was on a roll and playing good, so we knew we needed to play good.”

Brody Saunders played a big role both on the mound and at the plate, pitching a complete game, one-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts while hitting a double, single and driving in three runs at the plate.

“He threw very well and got some key hits,” Silva said. “It’s awesome to get back to the regional, I told the team there are only 16 teams left playing in our division now. It’s not something to take for granted, it’s a nice achievement and something you shoot for every year. Hopefully we can keep moving on.”

His base-clearing double in the bottom of the second gave St. C (20-7), the No. 14 ranked team in the state by the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association, more than enough breathing room with him dealing.

“Saunders is really good, he’s probably one of the better pitchers we’ve faced in the last five years that I’ve been here,” Buckeye Local head coach Jeff Patrick said. “He throws nothing but strikes, he mixes pitches well and hits his locations well. We just couldn’t get in front of it today, he had our number and he’s had our number for a while now, he no-hit us last year in the tournament. We knew when we saw him on the line up card it was going to be tough.”

For the Panthers (11-16), who had pulled two road upsets of higher seeds to reach the district final for the first time in more than two decades, it was a tough ending to what had been a strong push to end the season. They finish with wins in six of their last eight games.

“We’ve been trying to figure out exactly when it was … it was either 1999 or 2000,” Patrick said. “That’s over 20 years, the kids on this team weren’t alive yet and I was about two years old, so this was a big accomplishment for this group.

“I think when you play the teams in our area like St. Clairsville, Steubenville, Toronto, they set the standard and that’s our aspiration is to get there. I think being here and seeing this level will open up our eyes and make us work even harder.

“From our senior night win over Weir on, our guys started trusting the process more and buying in and that is what we hope to carry over into next year.”

After a scoreless first inning and a half, the Red Devils broke through in the bottom of the second.

After an error started the inning, an Eligha Hill sac fly opened the scoring, then, after St. C. had loaded the bases, Saunders came up and ripped a double that emptied them and made it 4-0.

In the fourth, the Red Devils added to the lead when Micky Balgo and Colton Florence were hit by pitches with the bases loaded in back-to-back at bats, providing the final margin.

The Panthers’ Dom Kempton was only charged with two earned runs in going all six innings, striking out six and walking five in taking the loss.

Kaleb Stang, another of the Panthers’ seniors, had the lone hit on the day for Buckeye Local, a leadoff single in the second inning. From there, Saunders shut the door.

The Panthers depart a class of seven seniors, who leave putting the first district hardware in the baseball trophy case at the school since before they were born. They were Stang, Alex McDiffit, Wyatt Luyster, Brady Kalman, Mason Griffin, Kempton and Hadyn Boyce.

“It’s going to be tough,” Patrick said. “Getting this far is a great memory for them to carry forward, those guys definitely deserved it. I hope that this is something that, when they come back and see the first district trophy, albeit a runner up one, in the case in the long time, it’s something they can think back fondly of and be proud of.

“We hope that this is where we can look back and say that is where the program started changing. This raises the bar for the guys coming back.

“My first year coaching five years ago was the year coming out of COVID and we had four wins, these seniors were in eighth grade then. Now they are graduating with 41 wins as a class and a district final appearance. It’s a big increase from the class before them and hopefully we can continue to increase with every class after them.”

The Red Devils will meet Ridgewood in the Region 19 semi finals on June 4 at Mazeroski Field in Cadiz. Ridgewood defeated Harrison Central, 3-1, in the East 1 final on Thursday.

“I think being there last year (and falling in the regional semifinals) is a big part of that,” Silva said of his team’s somewhat subdued celebration. “They know we’re going to keep playing and there’s still work to do.”