KHSAA state baseball tournament: Eastern High beats Bullitt East in 11 innings to advance
Jason Frakes
LEXINGTON, Ky. — It took 11 innings and nearly four hours, but Carson Shee emerged a hero for the Eastern High School baseball team Thursday.
The sophomore designated hitter hit a two-run, inside-the-park home run in the top of the 11th inning to lift the Eagles to a 7-5 victory over Bullitt East in the first round of the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop State Tournament at Counter Clocks Field.
“I was just chugging around the bases the entire time,” Shee said. “It was kind of unreal, to be honest. I kind of blacked out at the end at home.”
With Ben Brown at second base and one out, Shee hit a line drive at Bullitt East center fielder Dax Raney. He made a diving attempt to catch the liner but missed, allowing the ball to roll to the 400-foot mark at the center-field fence. Brown and Shee scored to give the Eagles a 7-5 lead.
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It was the fourth home run of the season for Shee.
“The second half of the season he’s matured so much, and his confidence has grown tremendously,” Eagles coach T.J. Graves said of Shee. “He’s always been a hard worker. He’s always been active in the weight room. The second half of the season he just exploded. I knew if we got somebody to second he was going to put it in play.”
Eastern (28-12), in the state tournament for the first time since 1997, will face No. 17-ranked Shelby County (30-9) at 10 a.m. Saturday in a quarterfinal.
Bullitt East finished 22-14-1.
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“They made a couple more plays than us, and we had a few defensive mishaps we haven’t had in the last two weeks,” said Chargers coach Jeff Bowles, whose team committed four errors. “Hats off to them. I hope they win the whole thing.”
Trailing 5-4 and down to its final strike in the bottom of the seventh inning, Bullitt East got an RBI double from sophomore catcher Luke Renfrow to tie the score and force extra innings. Renfrow finished 4-for-5 with three doubles.
Both teams went scoreless for three innings before Eastern finally broke through in the 11th.
Brown led off with a walk and moved to second on Jake Lind’s sacrifice bunt before Shee’s heroics. Bowles had no issue with Raney’s attempt for a diving catch.
“That’s who he is,” Bowles said. “If he doesn’t dive for that, that’s not him. That would have been some other guy out there. Ten out of 10 times, I think that is the right thing to do.”
The Chargers got runners to first and third with two outs in the bottom of the 11th, but Eastern’s Landon Waugh struck out Cade Owen to end it.
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Waugh (4-3) pitched three innings of scoreless relief and struck out four to get the victory.
“They’re special aren’t they, man?” Graves said of his players. “Everybody sees it. This isn’t coach speak. They’re special, dude. They freaking play together, never give up, all those clichés. There’s some magic in there. Even if we don’t win this thing, this is an awesome, fun group. … I’m a prisoner of the moment, but this is the favorite team I’ve ever coached.”
After 3 hours and 48 minutes of play, Eastern’s 11 seniors scrambled to head back to Louisville in time for an 8 p.m. graduation ceremony.
Meanwhile, Graves and his assistant coaches also were looking for rides home.
“Don’t give props to the bus driver,” Graves said. “The bus driver left us. Do we have to pay him now? Unbelievable.”
EASTERN 000 004 100 02 - 7 8 2
BULLITT EAST 100 102 100 00 - 5 12 4
WP – Landon Waugh (4-3). LP – Chris Logan (1-1).
Jason Frakes: 502-582-4046; jfrakes@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @kyhighs.