By Michael Lindsay
The Upperman Bees only led once against the Smith County Owls in Saturday’s non-district baseball matchup, but that was all they needed as a Julian Llano walk-off single scored two runs to give Upperman a 2-1 victory.
“That’s a Smith County/Upperman rivalry game there,” said Upperman head coach Wes Shanks. “We got the best of them at their place, and we knew they’d be hungry. It was a challenging game for us, and we found a way.”
Upperman trailed 1-0 entering the bottom of the seventh inning, where Carson Shupe, Alec Wilson and Rookie Allison each got on base safely to set up Llano’s game-winning grounder through the left side of the infield.
“Those guys were not phased by the moment,” said Shanks. “Sometimes you need gamers, and it felt like in that last inning those four rose to the occasion.
“We actually pinch-hit for Julian earlier in the game just trying to spark something,” added Shanks. “I couldn’t be more pleased with how he responded.”
Llano also earned the complete-game victory on the mound as he surrendered 4 hits, and 1 earned run while walking only 1 and striking out 4 batters.
Smith County falls to 14-4 and travels to York Institute on Wednesday. The Bees improve to 13-8 overall and return to District 7-3A play on Monday when they host current #2 seed Cumberland County at 5:30 p.m.
“It’s a huge week for us in the district,” said Shanks. “Our magic number is one; we win one and we clinch to host the district tournament for the fourth straight time.”
