ROXANA – The Roxana High School baseball team played in its third straight IHSA Class 2A regional championship game, and this time around, the Shells hosted.
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The two-seeded Shells hosted three-seeded Columbia Saturday afternoon and fell 3-0, denying back-to-back regional titles.
Instead, the Eagles won their fifth straight.
“We knew it would be tight, going to come down to one or two plays, and that’s what it came down to,” Roxana head coach Jerry Wheaton said.
One of those big plays came early.
Mason Crump started on the mound for Roxana and struggled.
He hit the game’s first batter and walked the second. Crump got the game’s first strikeout before those baserunners advanced to second and third on a wild pitch during Cash Bailey’s at-bat.
Bailey then delivered a two-run line drive single to center field to give his team the early lead. Crump then got back-to-back strikeouts to end the inning.
“Crump was not Crump like there in the first inning, especially with those first two hitters,” Wheaton said. “We got through those first two hitters, and he was right back to business. After those first two hitters, he was really good for four innings.”
Crump had thrown 32 pitches in the first inning. In comparison, Columbia’s starter, Connor Basinski, threw 40 pitches through three.
Columbia’s other run came in the fourth. Bailey led things off with a double and then moved to third after Logan Bosch’s single.
Bailey later scored on an error, an overthrown ball to first base, to make it 3-0.
That would be Crump’s final action. He exited the game after four innings, 80 pitches, allowing only one earned run on three hits. He struck out seven while walking two.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” Wheaton said. “Mason’s our guy, and his numbers prove it. That was his first loss of the season, and the guy came in with a sub-one ERA. I think that’s the guy you want out on the mound.”
“It was a tough way to start the game, but we had seven innings to battle, and we struggled a little bit today with that,” Wheaton said.
Last season, Crump threw a complete game no-hitter as the Shells topped Althoff Catholic 4-0 to win the program’s eighth regional title in Carlyle. He struck out 16 batters that day.
Landon Sitze replaced Crump and pitched the fifth and sixth innings. Bradley Herrin pitched the final frame. The three combined for 11 Ks, only allowing four hits on Saturday.
Basinski, a freshman, went the distance, striking out eight while only allowing three hits.
It’s not to say Roxana didn’t have its chances to score.
Basinski’s only blemish of the game was hitting back-to-back batters in the bottom of the fourth. With runners on first and second, Sean Maberry struck out, and then Max Autery got caught stealing third to end the inning.
Another glimmer of hope came in the sixth inning. The Shells turned a momentum-boosting double play and then had the top of their order come up to bat. Dalton Carriker took a lead-off walk, Basinski’s only one of the day, but Kaden Carlisle grounded out, Crump struck out, and Autery popped out, sending the game to the seventh.
The two teams split their regular-season Cahokia Conference battles back in mid-April.
A back-to-back home and away series was first won by the Eagles 7-1. The game was tied 1-1 after seven innings before Columbia scored six runs in the eighth. The Shells bounced back the next day and won 2-1, all three runs being scored in the first two innings.
“It was a little weird,” Wheaton said. “Because Crump was the guy that, when we lost, they didn’t beat Crump, but he was the starter in that game, and then we beat the kid that we saw today. So, it was a true split, the two guys that haven’t seen each other, let’s go at it.”
Crump started the game that the Shells lost, pitching the first six innings, striking out seven, allowing one earned run on five hits. Sitze threw the seventh inning and then started the eighth, where he gave up six runs on two hits, taking the loss. Only two runs were earned.
In the second game, Basinski was on the mound. The Shells put eight hits past him that day, compared to just three on Saturday.
“It was just one of those days where things don’t go your way,” Wheaton said. “I thought we had a pretty good approach at the plate, the kids hit some balls hard, just got to stop hitting it to guys, but that’s part of baseball sometimes.”
Roxana’s season ends with a 20-10-1 record, finishing back-to-back 20-win seasons, something that hasn’t been done since the Shells went three straight from 2000-2002 under head coach Joe Huff.
Those teams won three straight regional titles as well, the only time the program has won back-to-back regionals.
Columbia, who finished second at the IHSA Class 2A state tournament in 2023 and third the year before that, won the program’s fifth straight regional title, its 12th overall, half of which have come under current head coach Neal O’Donnell.
The Eagles move on to play top-seeded Effingham St. Anthony in the Teutopolis Sectional semifinals on Wednesday, May 28, at 6:30 p.m.
The second-seeded Wooden Shoes host fourth-seeded Breese Central in the other semifinal that day at 4:30 p.m. The sectional championship will be on Saturday, May 31, at 10 a.m.
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