The grit and determination Live Oak displayed in rallying from a one-game deficit Saturday to defeat homestanding Prairieville has been a recurring theme for the past 2\u00bd weeks.<\/p>\n
The Eagles were seven games under .500 and faced the distinct possibility of not qualifying for the Division I nonselect playoffs a year after a state runner-up finish.<\/p>\n
Live Oak won its last six games, earned a No. 23 seed and a road date with District 5-5A foe Prairieville, the No. 10 seed, which outlasted the Eagles 2-1 in 14 innings in Friday\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n
The Eagles responded in Saturday\u2019s first game with a 5-4 victory in nine innings before exploding for a 10-6 victory to win the series and advance to next week\u2019s best-of-three regional at No. 7 Walker.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur backs have been against the wall, so we\u2019re used to and ready for it,\u201d Live Oak\u2019s first-year coach Cary Myers said. \u201cThe last six games of the season we had to win out to get in, and we did. We came here as the 23 seed versus the 10 seed, and there\u2019s nobody that had us winning except us. I\u2019m just proud of these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Live Oak 10, Prairieville 6: The Eagles (18-18) built a 7-3 lead through three innings with three runs in each of the second and third innings.<\/p>\n
Third baseman Mac Beadle (3 for 5, 2 doubles, 3 RBIs) doubled in a pair of runs down the left-field line in the second and Live Oak had four of its 13 hits in the third inning with consecutive run-scoring singles from Beadle, Jaxon Rosenthal (2 for 4) and Cullen Weller (3 for 4, 2 RBIs.)<\/p>\n
Relief pitcher Aiden Cucinello (1-0) halted Prairieville\u2019s offense, which scored twice in the first inning. The right-hander only allowed one more run until catcher Grant Gautreau\u2019s towering three-run homer in the sixth that reduced Live Oak\u2019s lead to 8-6.<\/p>\n
The Eagles tacked on two more runs in the seventh on Parker Morse\u2019s RBI double and Isaac Ott\u2019s bases-loaded walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them (the nine seniors) if we would have been back in January, and I would have said we were going to win 25 games, be district co-champs and host a first-round playoff series, we would have said we would have taken that,\u201d Prairieville coach Kade Keowen said. \u201cLooking at today stinks, but when you look at everything as a whole from February until now, you can\u2019t be prouder of those kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Live Oak 5, Prairieville 4 (9): Adam Beeson\u2019s sacrifice fly to center field scored Zant Gurney from third base with the winning run in the ninth inning.<\/p>\n
Prairieville (25-11) tied the game at 3-3 with two runs in the fourth and took a 4-3 lead in the eighth on a wild pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose wins to finish the regular season,\u201d Beadle said, \u201cwe knew coming into the playoffs we have enough fight and what it takes to do what we did today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linescores<\/p>\n
Live Oak 10, Prairieville 6<\/p>\n
Game 3<\/p>\n
Live Oak 133 001 2 \u2013 10 13 2<\/p>\n
Prairieville 210 003 0 \u2013 6 8 2<\/p>\n
W: Aiden Cucinello (1-0). SV: Brice Craig (1st). L: Cade Schramm. Leaders: LOHS: Mac Beadle 3-5, 2 2B, 3 RBIs, 2 runs, Cullen Weller 3-4, BB, 2 RBIs, Jaxon Rosenthal 2-4, 2B, Parker Morse 2-4, 2B, 2 RBIs; PHS: Liam Watkins 2-5, 2 runs, Grant Gautreau 2-2, HR, 2 runs, 3 RBIs, Dylan McClure 2-3. Records: Live Oak 18-18, Prairieville 25-11.<\/p>\n
Game 2<\/p>\n
Live Oak 5, Prairieville 4 (9)<\/p>\n
Prairieville 001 200 010 \u2013 4 7 0<\/p>\n
Live Oak 101 100 011 \u2013 5 5 1<\/p>\n
W: Ripp Clark. L: Colton Morris. Leaders: PHS: Colton Morris 1-2, HR, RBI, run; Jobe Fontenot 1-3, RBI, Liam Watkins 1-3, RBI; LOHS: Parker Morse 1-3, 2 RBIs, Mac Beadle 1-2, 2 runs, RBI, Cullen Weller 1-2, 2B, RBI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The grit and determination Live Oak displayed in rallying from a one-game deficit Saturday to defeat homestanding Prairieville…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2328,2304,4,2305,2303],"class_list":{"0":"post-678891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-playoffs","13":"tag-mlb-postseason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116429944491767959","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}