Beechmont Sno-Ball Classic
Louisville Longhorns 8, Louisville Legends 6
Familiar faces, familiar places. Just one week prior, the Louisville Longhorns and the Louisville Legends were in opposite dugouts for the championship game of the Pre-Season Classic. Seven days later, the crosstown rivals would face each other once again, this time for the right to advance to the championship game of the following weekend’s Sno-Ball Classic. Both tournaments were contested at the Beechmont baseball complex, where these two teams will see each other once again, later this season, when they square off in competitive league play.
Starting pitcher Nicholas Parrish would earn the win,
striking out 6 along the way.
Like the setting and the opponents, the first four innings of the game took on a familiar appearance. Having won their inaugural affair against the Legends by a score of 12-0, the Longhorns looked to be on their way to authoring a strikingly similar follow-up story. In the top of the second inning, with Nicholas Parrish and Ryan Hamilton already on base via a walk and an error, Bryce Elmore, Noah Baugher and Brendan Koester stroked back-to-back-to-back singles, Andrew Littlefield added a sacrifice fly and Casey Simon pulled a run-scoring double down the third base line to put a healthy five runs up on the board.
Two frames later, Brendan Koester launched his first career home run, far over the left field screen, and after Andrew Littlefield singled, Matthew Higgins added a 2-run blast, his third of the season, to straightaway center field. The score was now 8-0, and it certainly appeared that the Longhorns would once again cruise to another one-sided, shutout victory. But in the Legends final at bat, the story line of the sequel would suddenly deviate from the original.
Brendan Koester cranks his first career home run.
Matthew Higgins mashed his third round-tripper of the season.
Just when one thought the show was, for all intents and purposes, over, a plot twist in the form of two 2-out, 3-run homers turned a foregone conclusion into an edge-of-your-seat, 8-6 nail-biter for Longhorn fans. Any chance of a storybook ending for the Legends was denied, however, by Matthew Higgins—he of the steely countenance and menacing fastball—who came in from left field and struck out the final batter of the game, swinging.
Roll credits.
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