By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – Perhaps someone needs to sacrifice a chicken to Jobu, or offer the voodoo doll a cigar and another movie role, to lift the curse on Bedford North Lawrence in the Hoosier Hills Conference tournament.
Don’t believe in black magic? How else do you explain BNL’s historic lack of success in the annual event? There’s a definite dark shadow looming over the program. At this point, any remedy – prayer, witchcraft, exorcism – would be welcome.
This was the year for the program’s first HHC title. The Stars had the seventh-seal draw, a bye into the semifinals and two home games, as perfect of a scenario as possible. They even had a 6-3 lead with six outs to go, before the Red Priestess from the Game of Thrones appeared in the first-base dugout and resurrected Jeffersonville. Or someone with occult powers hexed the arms of BNL pitchers.
The Red Devils scored four runs in the sixth inning, without the benefit of a base hit, while rallying to stun the Stars 7-6 in the accursed semifinal on Wednesday evening. Jeffersonville (12-8) avenged an earlier loss to BNL and advanced to meet bitter rival New Albany in the championship.
Comebacks have become Jeffersonville’s standard operating procedure. Out of their 12 victories, the Devils have battled back from deficits of three or more runs seven times to win. So when the Stars surged to their late advantage, the Devils had them right where they wanted them.
“It’s not a place you want to be,” Jeff coach Shayne Stock said. “It says everything about who we are. They’re young, they’re fearless, they don’t know any better. They play until it’s over. We try to make it as hard as possible for the other team to get 21 outs. That’s what happened today. The outs became really hard to record.”
Here’s the highlights of the Jeff sixth inning. Hit batter, walk, error, wild pitch, error, walk, walk, walk. BNL coach Steven McNabb tried three different hurlers. Every move he made was offset by a pin in the voodoo doll. Pedro Cerrano had a better chance of hitting the curveball. Definitely a curse.
“We just didn’t execute well enough,” McNabb said. “We had a three-run lead, and I would take that every time. And twice on Sunday. We didn’t make good enough pitches, we didn’t field it well enough. There are things we need to clean up.”
Until that point, the Stars (12-5) were in great position. They scored twice in the first (Cal Gates crushed a lead-off home run, and Tate Tanksley’s double set up a RBI ground out by Cutler Chastain), twice in the third (Cam Gates trotted home on an error and Chastain singled in a go-ahead run), and twice more in the fifth (RBI singles by Chastain and Jackson Jones).
Then came the inexplicable sixth.
“It wasn’t from a lack of effort,” McNabb said. “The guys battled. It was their first experience in the conference tournament, a lot of pressure. But that’s good. When you’re under pressure, that’s a privilege. That means there are expectations. You have to relish it and thrive in that moment.”
BNL had recorded a 9-2 win over the Devils on April 25. That night, the Devils were their own worst enemies with eight walks and two errors. This time, the Stars issued seven walks and had three miscues. One of these years, they will win this tournament. Even the Chicago Cubs broke the Curse of the Billy Goat to win a World Series title.
“I was hopeful things would change and we would play a little cleaner,” Stock said. “We did not, but this time we found a way to stay in the game, scratch and hang around long enough, to see who could execute baseball plays.”
Jeffersonville made the most of five hits. Cash Waters went the distance on the mound and fanned five. Tanksley had three hits while Chastain drove in three runs for BNL.
BNL will now face Seymour (which suffered a 2-1 loss to New Albany in the other semifinal) in the third-place game on Friday at BNL. The Stars already dropped a 3-2 decision at Seymour on April 21, and BNL drew the Owls for their first game in the IHSAA sectional.
