But it was nearly absent from his hand Thursday.
“I left it and we have a foreign exchange student that I take to school every morning,” Hedinger said. “My wife brought it up to me at the school. She said, ‘You can’t leave this.’ She knows I’m pretty superstitious like coach (Chief) Mayhew was.”
On a night where his Warriors were squandering opportunities early, perhaps the ring gave them the extra bump they needed.
Behind a season-high 13-strikeout outing from Jared Phillips, the Warriors froze the James Monroe offense and capitalized on just enough opportunities to secure the Class AA Region 3 championship with a 4-2 win over James Monroe Thursday in Lindside.
The win sends the Warriors to the state tournament for the first time since winning it all in 2012. East’s matchup will be determined after all the regional championship games are finalized.
Delayed two days due to rain, the teams found a perfect weather-free window to get the game and for awhile a third game was on the table.
East struggled to capitalize on early scoring opportunities, stranding six runners through the first three innings and having another picked off on the bases.
But it was a hit from James Monroe, a two-run home run off the bat of Kadyn Hines, that seemed to serve as the wakeup call for the Warriors. The sophomore’s two-out two-run blast staked the Mavericks to a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third.
“(Phillips) is 9-1 this year,” Hedinger said. “Before this game he had 59 strikeouts and five walks. He made one pretty bad pitch – he hung that curveball and (Hines) hit it out to the pavilion or whatever that is out there. It was a great hit.”
East, which took a 1-0 lead when Gaige Cooper was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, had an immediate answer to Hines’ blast.
Singles by No. 8 and 9 hitters Jake Stewart and Talan Muscari set the table for the top of the order which came through.
Zach Hunt tied the game with a double and a pick off attempt of Muscari at third base bounced into foul territory, allowing the latter to race home for the go-ahead run. An RBI-groundout from Braxton Morgan pushed across the final run and Phillips did the rest of the heavy lifting, limiting the Mavericks to just two base runners the rest of the way, one which was picked off by Hunt on a throw down to first base.
“Based off of the offense that we have and the capabilities that we have, the runs that we’ve put up recently, if you would have told me that we’re going to spot them four runs, I would have been okay with that,” James Monroe head coach Tom Gardinier said. “But for whatever reason, it came down to the same thing that we’ve been struggling with all year, and that’s striking out. We’ve probably lead the state in strikeouts. I mean, I don’t know, but it’s up there.
“As far as letting them get some runners on and then stranding runners, that’s a resiliency thing. We didn’t give it up. We just kept battling and kept battling and the ball would find our glove when it needed to. And I don’t think we made too many mental mistakes or physical errors. It’s just sometimes a better team just beats you and that’s what happened today.”
For Phillips it was his second victory in a clinching game after he took the mound in East’s victory over Summers County last week that secured the Warriors’ ticket to the regional champi0nship series.
“It was my curveball,” Phillips said. “I can place it when I need to.”
Hines went 2-for-3 at the plate to pace James Monroe while seven different Warriors backed Phillips with a hit.
