Photo by Kim North Barnesville catcher Aidan Caldwell waits on the ball as Union Local’s Colby Carpenter prepares to slide into home plate during action from Tuesday’s Ohio Division V, East 1 District semifinal baseball tournament game at Memorial Park in Barnesville. Carpenter was out on a force play and the Shamrocks prevailed, 4-1, to advance to Thursday’s district final against Martins Ferry at Buckeye Trail High School.

BARNESVILLE – Barnesville played ‘small ball’ and was opportunistic at the same time Tuesday in defeating western Belmont County rival Union Local, 4-1, on the cloud-covered Memorial Park diamond in an Ohio Division V, East 1 District semifinal baseball tournament game.

The top-seeded Shamrocks (20-7) scored half of their runs on sacrifice flies and the other two came across on errors in the Jets outfield.

“We executed well at times, but we’ve got to do better against Martins Ferry. I thought we left some runs out there,” veteran Barnesville head coach D.J. Butler said.

With the win, Barnesville not only punched its ticket to the district finals against No. 5 Martins Ferry, but also won its 20th game for only the eighth time in program history. The Purple Riders dispatched No. 14 Navarre Fairless, also by a 4-1, margin, on Tuesday. The district championship game is set for Thursday at 5 p.m. at Buckeye Trail High School in Old Washington.

“It feels like it comes down to us and them every year,” Butler said of the district final. “We played a couple of years ago in Toronto and we also played them in Maysville another time.”

The Shamrocks and Purple Riders will be meeting for the fourth time this season. They split a pair of regular-season matchups, with the visiting team winning in each game. Barnesville won an OVAC semifinal contest between the two, 6-5.

Max Miller drove the second pitch he saw from Union Local’s Colby Carpenter up the middle for a single. After stealing second, Miller advanced to third on Brayden Watters’ high-chopper through the left side of the infield. Blake Burkhart sent a drive to deep center that allowed Miller to easily score.

With Gunner Dudzik on first with one out in the second, Jack Anderson’s single to center got past the centerfielder as Dudzik raced around the bases to make it 2-0.

Union Local (12-11), the No. 8 seed, cut the deficit in half with a run of its own in the third. Braden Kovac singled to center leading off. He went to second on an errant pickoff and raced home on a one-out bloop single to left by Carpenter. The inning could have been bigger as the Jets loaded the bases with one out before a fielder’s choice and inning-ending strikeout snuffed it out.

“I think our program is still growing. We only had two seniors in the starting lineup today, so we’re really young,” Union Local head coach Jim Hess said. “We showed some youngster mistakes in the outfield and we threw to the wrong base a couple of times. We couldn’t get their leadoff batter out in the first four innings and they put pressure on us to make plays in the field, and we didn’t.”

Barnesville added a pair of runs in the bottom of the third as Parker Sobutka dropped a single into shallow left-center that scored Burkhart and winning pitcher Dylan Blon raced home on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Dudzik.

Blon took over from there. The all-time leader in program pitching wins with 22 now needed just 23 pitches to record nine outs from the fourth through the sixth innings. The lefty, who will pitch for Marietta University next spring, finished with 90 pitches, of which 59 were strikes. He threw a first-pitch strike to 17 of the 28 batters he faced. He recorded three strikeouts, walked one and scattered four singles.

“Outstanding effort on his part,” Butler said of Blon. “We played great defense behind him. He’s our No. 1 and he gets the ball in all of our big games.”

Blon said he had a rocky start but overcame it.

“I didn’t have good stuff early on, but after a couple of good defensive plays behind me I settled down and got into a groove,” Blon said. “My defense made a couple of really good plays behind me.”

He was referring to a sliding catch by Miller in center for the first out of the seventh.

Carpenter went the first four frames for Union Local. He struck out one and walked three before giving way to Brody Gregor. Gregor fanned three and issued one free pass. Together they gave up half-a-dozen singles.

“I’m pleased with the way we progressed as the season went on,” Hess said. “Things are looking good for next year and I know that doesn’t mean a whole lot right now, but we’ll be back.”