Naylor's Dustin Hogan, left, and Josh Cullison walk off the field after losing to host Winona in the Class 1 District 4 tournament Friday afternoon. (Brad Hurt/DAR) [Click to enlarge]

By BRAD HURT ~ DAR Sports Writer

WINONA -- The young Naylor Eagles were one strike away from surviving a Winona rally and taking home the MSHSAA Class 1 District 4 title on Friday at Joe W. Roberts Field.

Unfortunately, they ended up watching the host Wildcats celebrate the title after an eighth-inning RBI double by Kyle Wakefield gave Winona a 13-12 win.

Winona's Logan Holthaus crushed the spirit of the visiting team in the seventh by sending a 3-2 offering from Naylor's Travis Thomas over the left-center field fence to tie the game and force extra innings.

"It's tough, but that's baseball," Naylor coach Glen Eubanks said.

"Travis is a proven winner, and he can work himself out of those situations," Naylor's Josh Cullison said. "We thought we'd get another out and go rattle some bats, but things don't always go as you planned."

Kevin Winger led off the bottom of the eighth with a single before Wakefield ended the game with a ball in the right-center field gap that scored Winger.

The Eagles (4-9), whose roster features no seniors, defied the odds by even appearing in the championship game and gave the top-seeded Wildcats all they wanted.

"That's a pretty good team over there," Thomas said. "Our team played a heck of a game. I pitched pretty well, I just gave up a few runs that hurt us."

"We're talking about competing and winning in a tough, competitive game," Eubanks said. "We just lack the experience at this moment."

Everything seemed to be falling into place for Naylor early in Friday's MSHSAA Class 1 District 4 final against Winona as they got out to a seven-run lead in the first three innings.

They put four runs on the board in the first, highlighted by a 3-run home run off the bat of Ryan Kovach. The first four Eagle hitters reached base to start the game as Holthaus struggled to find the strike zone.

The Wildcats then cut the lead in half as Cullison walked the first hitter he faced and gave up a home run to the next batter, Nathan Kile, for a 4-2 score.

"Whenever I got ahead of them, I was just leaving some balls hanging," Cullison said.

Cory Kovach hit a 2-run home run in the second to extend the Naylor lead to 6-2 and it ballooned to 10-3 through three innings before the Wildcats did the real damage.

T.J. Thomason led off the fourth with a single and Brett Atkins followed with a double to set up a 3-run home run by Austin Fisher that cut the Naylor lead to 10-6. An RBI single and two RBI doubles followed in the frame as the Wildcats knocked Cullison out of the game after 3 1/3 innings.

He allowed nine runs on 10 hits, striking out three and walking two.

"We had them down there early in the game, and they were struggling. Then we just gave them some opportunities. You're just giving them a chance to break that momentum barrier, and they really started playing after that," Eubanks said.

Thomas relieved Cullison and calmed the Winona bats until the sixth, when Thomason hit a 2-run home run to left to pull Winona to within a run at 12-11.

After Thomas retired Fisher and Kile on a groundout and a flyout, respectively, for the first two outs of the seventh, Holthaus delivered for the home team.

"We're getting there; we're learning," Eubanks said. "We stayed in this game, but in key situations (Winona) just stepped up and made plays, and they're moving on. You've got to give them credit."

Fisher and Wakefield each drove in three runs for the Wildcats. Thomas and Ryan Kovach each drove in three for the Eagles. Thomas went 2-for-4 to lead the team while five other Eagles had a hit in the game.

Holthaus left the game in the first after allowing four runs without recording an out, but he returned to pitch the final four innings. He allowed six runs on three hits and struck out seven.

Kile pitched four innings in relief of Holthaus, allowing six runs on four hits. He walked six and struck out seven.

"That starter they had at first was real wild, they took him out, brought him back in, and he settled down," Eubanks said. "It was our advantage in the early innings and theirs in the later innings."

Thomas said his team's strong performance in this tournament and last fall's conference tournament, where they made another unexpected run to finish fourth, is due to the extra motivation of a tournament atmosphere.

"For some reason, our team plays a lot better in tournaments because you're playing for something," he said.