On Tuesday night, the Marshall County Tigers punched their ticket to the District 12-AA tournament championship game by defeating the third seeded Summit Spartans 5-2 at home in the finals of their four-team pool.

After losing both regular season meetings against Summit, Marshall County (22-6) was locked in a 0-0 tie with the Spartans through the first four innings of play before pushing across two runs in the bottom of the fifth to grab a 2-0 lead.

Summit (19-13) rallied to tie the game at 2-2 in the top of the sixth inning, but the Tigers kept their cool and plated three runs in the bottom half of the frame to seize a 5-2 advantage en route to advancing to the District title game for the third straight year.

Offense explodes

Having scored a total of just two runs in their two previous encounters against the Spartans, Marshall County finally broke Summit's hex over them and finished with 11 hits and two walks thanks to their late offensive flurry.

Dylan McKnight led MCHS' offensive resurgence by going 3-for-4 with a double and a RBI, while Grayson Wiles and Hayden Bailey both notched two hits. Starting pitcher Matt Sharp (2 RBI), Bubba Houghton (1 RBI), Aaron Hobbs (1 RBI), and catcher Chandler Harmon had one hit apiece for the Tigers as well with Houghton belting a solo homerun.

Despite pitching a complete game against Hickman County four days earlier, Sharp had plenty of fuel left in the tank against the Spartans, as he yielded just two runs in seven innings of work on five hits and two walks to earn his eighth win of the season.

Summit starting hurler Dale Burdick suffered the loss after yielding five runs in five and a third innings. Ethan Keel (1 RBI), Burdick, Jordan Kelly, Will Dalton, and Nate Sumner each had one hit for the Spartans.

Early chances

Both teams failed to cash in on early scoring opportunities, as MCHS left the bases loaded in the bottom of the first inning before Summit stranded runners on first and second in the top of the third.

Burdick then worked around a two-out double by McKnight in the bottom of the third, but Marshall County began to string together some hits in the fifth inning and tallied two runs in the frame to take a 2-0 lead. Following a leadoff single by Wiles, Hobbs belted a RBI double to deep left field to give the Tigers a 1-0 advantage. Hobbs then advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Sharp before scoring on a McKnight RBI single.

The Spartans quickly erased the deficit by pushing across two runs in the top of the sixth with the help of a two-out single by Kelly, a walk, a Keel RBI single, and a MCHS error to knot the game at 2-2.

Back in front

The Tigers, however, quickly reclaimed the momentum and scored three runs in the bottom half of the sixth to forge a 5-2 lead. After Houghton led off the inning by cranking a solo homer over the left field fence, Wiles singled and Hobbs drew a walk to put men on first and second with no outs before Sharp roped a two-run triple into the left centerfield gap.

In the top of the seventh, Sumner tried to start a Summit rally and singled with one out, but Sharp struck out Burdick before Harmon threw out Sumner at second on a stolen base attempt to end the game.