The final regular season contest of the year for the Hillcrest Academy Raven baseball team had more twists and turns than the entire schedule leading up to it, with the Ravens scoring a 15-12 walk-off win over Danville. The game belonged to Hillcrest early as they built an 11-0 lead, and batted through the order twice in the first four frames, with one run in the first, five in the second, three in the third and two more in the fourth, sitting within three outs of ending action early with the mercy rule. Luke Schrock piled up three early RBI with Jace Rempel, Seth Ours, and Noah Miller all driving in one as Hillcrest used timely hitting to capitalize on 14 free batters awarded by Bears through walks, errors and hit batters. In the fifth, the script flipped.

Backs against the wall, needing to score to stay alive, Danville countered with five in the fifth to keep the game going, but didn’t stop there. The Bears pulled within 11-7 with a two spot in the sixth and the improbable continued in the seventh with Danville, down to their final out, taking their first lead of the night on an opposite field grand slam from Sawyer Nelson.

Now trailing 12-11, with only three outs of their own left, the Ravens went back to work. They scratched across a run in the bottom half with Mason Bender scoring Mason Helmuth with an RBI ground out to knot the game at 12. After reliever Rowan Miller posted a zero in the top of the eighth, the Ravens bats warmed up again in the bottom half. Liam Schrock doubled to lead off, Luke Schrock followed with a single and Jace Rempel sent everyone home happy, blasting a walk-off, three run, opposite field homer to right. He talked after the game about the at-bat. “I went up there with the mindset of just getting a base hit. I just thinking take it opp-o and it worked out how it was supposed to. It was a line drive so, getting it over that tall fence is tough. I wasn’t sure if it was going out.”

The Ravens finished with 12 hits as a team. Rempel drove in a team high four. Luke Schrock was three for five with three runs scored and three RBI. Ours, Noah Miller and Mason Bender all drove in one. The Bears had 11 hits with Sawyer Nelson’s four RBI leading the way. Rowan Miller hung in for Hillcrest and recorded the win, working three frames out of the pen. The Ravens are now above .500 at 11-10 to start the playoffs Saturday. Danville falls to 3-14.