Photo by Andrew Grimm The Harrison Central Huskies, pictured Thursday with their Division V, East 2 District Championship after defeating Ridgewood 5-2.

ZOARVILLE — Veteran Harrison Central head coach Mike Valesko had a feeling his Huskies would eventually be able to break through.

They did, just in the nick of time.

The Huskies left runners on and battled through a scoreless tie going to the bottom of the sixth inning of Thursday’s Division V, East 2 District Championship, with some well-hit balls hit right at Ridgewood players.

Then Lance Smith came up with the bases loaded and no one out in the sixth. And, this time, the big hit dropped. Smith sent a double to the fence in right center, clearing the bases with the hit that ultimately proved to be the deciding knock in a 5-2 victory to earn a spot in regionals.

“We take a lot of pride in it anytime we can hoist the district trophy,” Valesko said. “We’ve been fortunate to have played in this game a few times in the last decade or so and it’s meaningful anytime you can win it.

“We missed some chances early, but we felt like we were going to break through. Our guys kept staying in it and that made me feel confident in them. I think once we got the leadoff hit (in the sixth) and got a couple guys on our guys started to feel good, they knew someone was going to come through. Lance, his at bat before that, got a hold of one to right field. We had some well-hit balls that did not fall, we just felt confident that eventually someone was going to come through for us.”

Being that it t was the fifth time in the last 10 years the Huskies (18-9) and Generals met in the district tournament — Ridgewood topping the Huskies in last year’s final the Huskies winning in 2023 on their way to Akron — Valesko knew it was going to be a challenge.

“We knew we were probably going to have to go through these guys,” he said. “A lot of these match ups in this game have been with them. We had to go through them when we won the district in 2016. We came up short against them in 2022, we got them in 2023 on our way to a district championship and they got us last year.

“I sent their coach a text two nights ago when we both won that said we both knew it was going to be us facing each other again. We’ve had this game circled for 12 months since we came up short last year.”

Having played in a lot of close games this season and against some good teams along the way, Valesko credits to his team remaining locked in while the game was close to those experiences.

“I think our schedule helps us a ton at this time of the year. The backend of our schedule is as difficult as I think you can have,” he said. “We played Waynedale, Olentangy Orange, Toronto a couple times, Indian Creek, Steubenville, and we played a lot of close games. I think when you’ve been in close games and played against teams like we’ve played you learn to keep battling and keep fighting and it makes you better.”

After Smith’s big hit, Kolton Mizer hit an RBI single, his second hit of the game, and Cash Meadows drove in another run with a sac fly, runs that proved to be big insurance when the Generals (20-10) scored a pair of runs in the top of the seventh on a two-out double from Andrew Kinsey.

Huskies pitcher Colten Rutter, though, got the next batter to ground out to finish his complete game. He finished with six strikeouts and four walks, allowing just four hits in going the distance.

“He threw really well for us and that was huge because we missed some opportunities early and that didn’t come back to bite us because he was on, he was really dominant,” Valesko said.

The Huskies advance to the Region 19 tournament, where they will take on East 1 District winner Barnesville, who edged Martins Ferry 5-4 on Thursday. The regional semifinal is set for Tuesday, conveniently enough, at Mazeroski Park in Cadiz.

The winner of that game meets the winner of a meeting between the Southeast 1 and 2 brackets, which are still be played out, in the regional final Thursday in Marietta.