OAKLAND — One game after mounting a thrilling comeback against county rival Northern, Southern repeated the feat twice to stun Frankfort on Monday.
The Rams trailed 7-3 with three outs remaining before forcing extra innings, and they found themselves in a 10-7 hole entering the bottom of the ninth.
Yet, for the second game in a row, Southern battled to the final out, tying the game on a two-run homer by Ryan Bird and winning it on a Ben Lohr two-out single to shock Frankfort, 11-10.
“I’m still trying to figure out what that was,” Southern head coach Hayden McLaughlin said. “These guys just like to make things hard on me and give me a heart attack at the age of 23, but they sure do make it exciting.
“They fight, fight, never give up. Belief in one another. Belief in the team. I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
Southern improved to 9-3 with the victory. The Rams won seven of their first 10 games against a relatively weak schedule, but they’ve solidified themselves as area contenders with a pair of late-game comebacks against quality clubs Northern and Frankfort.
The Falcons, who had a walk-off of their own on Saturday in a 5-4 win against Fairmont Senior, fall to 9-6.
“We should’ve won the baseball game,” Frankfort head coach Matt Miller said. “Southern did a great job fighting back, they took advantage of the mistakes that we made, and when we make that many mistakes, they made us pay for them and they won the game.”
Both rallies in the seventh and ninth innings began off the bat of catcher Reece Tasker.
The sophomore nearly tied the score in the seventh with an opposite-field grand slam, but his long fly ball hit halfway up the right-field fence. Still, two runs came home on the double, and Southern forced extras when Lohr and Tasker crossed the plate on a pair of wild pitches.
Following a scoreless eighth inning by both squads, Frankfort regained the lead when Jaxon Hare shot a two-out double into the left-center gap from the left-handed batter’s box.
The Falcons manufactured two more runs on the basepaths to enter the bottom of the ninth leading 10-7.
Tasker again gave Southern the shot in the arm it needed with a lead-off solo blast. He finished 5 for 5 with three runs batted in and four runs scored.
“Reece has been awesome for us,” McLaughlin said. “Struggled at the beginning of the year, moved him down in the line-up, built his confidence back up. He’s now starting to swing it like the player we know he is. Still tends to get a little lazy behind the plate, but I’ll let him slide tonight.”
Following a Brayden Upole walk, Bird sent a full-count pitch over the left-field fence for a two-run bomb that leveled the score at 10.
Frankfort then made a pitching change to bring in Hare, and Kyle Schofield followed with a bloop double down the right-field line.
Hare got out No. 2 with a strikeout, and he appeared to get out of the jam and force a 10th frame when he struck out pinch hitter Lucas Lambert.
However, the ball bounced away from the Frankfort catcher, allowing Lambert to reach via a dropped-third strike.
One batter later, Lohr won it by serving a soft line drive to left field on a breaking ball.
It was the second straight game Southern had a walk off hit after Jack Healy beat Northern with an opposite-field single to right field on Friday night.
The Falcons took a 6-1 lead into the sixth frame, plating two runs in the second, third and fourth innings; however, balks on consecutive pitches in the sixth with runners on third allowed Southern to trim the deficit to 6-3 without putting the ball in play.
Those cheap runs helped set the stage for the Rams’ extra-inning heroics.
“We made some mistakes early before extra innings,” Miller said. “They took advantage of our mistakes in regulation to force extra innings, and from there, they did a good job (to win it).
“Their catcher, Tasker, what a player. Great player. Bird came through with a clutch hit too.”
Bird ended 2 for 4 with three RBIs, driving in Southern’s first run with a single in the second inning. Lohr also had multiple hits for the Rams, who out-hit the Falcons, 12-11.
Blake Jacobs and Hare paced the Frankfort line-up with three knocks apiece. Jacobs doubled and scored four times, and Hare had a double and three runs batted in. Uriah Cutter also doubled, and Rhett Sensabaugh and Kaleb Atkinson each singled twice.
Sensabaugh gave Frankfort a serviceable start going into the seventh inning, and he was relieved by Cutter for two innings and Hare for 1/3 of a frame.
Bird tossed three frames for the Rams to start. Cade Leader pitched the next three, Matthew McCartney threw two and Brayden Upole tossed the ninth inning.
Upole was the winning pitcher, and Hare was dealt the loss.
Southern was helped by its strong defense, which committed just one error to Frankfort’s three. The Rams turned two double plays, one a strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play in the second inning, with Tasker getting the assist behind the plate.
The second came in the sixth frame when Upole, the shortstop, and Jared Haskiell, the second baseman, ended the inning with a 6-4-3 turn.
Upole later made a diving stop in the gap between shortstop and third base and made a clean throw to second for the final out of the eighth inning.
Southern has a quick turnaround at home against Petersburg (3-10) on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., and the Rams follow that with home games against the area’s Nos. 1 and 2 squads Keyser (13-1) and Allegany (11-2).
Frankfort also has a loaded week beginning with a home bout with Moorefield (5-10) on Tuesday at 6 p.m. The Falcons host Keyser on Wednesday and Mountain Ridge on Thursday, and they’re at Oak Glen on Friday.
“Flush it down the toilet, get locked in and get ready to go tomorrow,” Miller said of his postgame message. “We have five games this week. We have to forget about this one, move on and play better.”