The Sacred Heart Knights gave up only one run through three games at the 3A Regional at Dean Evans Stadium in Salina, including two shutouts Wednesday to claim the Regional Championship.

“That’s the best three game stretch our defense has played all year,” Sacred Heart coach Brad Dix said.

In the championship game the Knights were faced with a tough task, a Marion team who was the number one seed in the Regional and had run ruled both their opponents, but yet were unable to make the tough Sacred Heart defense crack.

“We were just having so much fun out their and we felt if we could get a crooked number we could win because of how well Blake was pitching,” Dix said.

Junior Blake Jones had the Warriors corralled all game, going the distance for the Knights pitching a two hit shutout.

“My change-up was working well, I had them in front of a lot of pitches,” Jones said. “But for the most part I mixed it up to keep them guessing.”

Marion’s Griffin Chase was pitching just as well as Jones and for six innings it was knotted up at zero and Griffin had struck out five and only giving up two hits including working out of a bases loaded jam.

“Marion’s a heck of a ball club and their kid pitched a whale of a game. It’s just fun to watch two kids go at it,” Dix said.

The top of the seventh inning was when the Knights figured out the mystery that was Griffin, accumulating three hits and three runs.  The inning started off with senior Damon Gormely walking and on a past ball, advanced to second.  Dix trying to catch the Warrior defense off guard, signaled sophomore Clayton Wetter to bunt. Wetter laid down a near perfect bunt, but a heads up play by Marion first basemen Taylor Heidebrecht ended with Gormely out at third.

Junior Daniel O’brien picked up his third hit of the game advancing Wetter to scoring position and gave the Knights a glimmer of hope.  Sophomore Kyle Stover then sent a shot to left center field scoring Wetter giving the Knights the 1-0 advantage.

Marion coach Roger Schroeder turned to a strategic game once his team fell down 1-0.  Marion intentionally walked junior Dalton Dooley to load the bases in hopes of picking up a double play and get out of the inning, but Jones had other plans, smashing a two run single to the outfield vaulting his team to the 3-0 lead.  Griffin would work out of yet another jam with runners on third and second with one out, with a double play after a mishap on the base path.

Jones who was strong all night finished the game sending the Warriors down in order.

“He (Blake) was so efficient on the mound, pounding the strike zone and changing speeds, that’s a championship performance right there,” Dix said.

Sacred Heart pulled double duty Wednesday night, and in their semifinal game against Saline County rival Southeast of Saline, O’Brien gave a championship performance with nine strikeouts only two hits and no runs, helping the Knights to the 3-0 advantage.

“I just went out and threw strikes and it worked,” O’Brien said.

No runs were scored in the game until the top of the fifth when Dooley scored on a errant exchange between sophomore third baseman Connor Boyer and senior first baseman Michael Swanson.  The Knights added a little more stress relief to O’Brien when Jones had a RBI double.

Sacred Heart would add one more insurance run in the sixth inning when junior Matt Kuffler scored by a Wetter single after he had a lead off triple.

Southeast gave Sacred Heart a bit of a chill in the bottom of the seventh inning when pinch runner, junior Gunnar Wiles made it all the way around to third with only one out, but O’Brien stayed calm and collected, striking out sophomore Dane Long and getting sophomore Bailey Ramsey to ground out.  With the loss Southeast finished the year 14-6.

Sacred Heart, now 17-6 advances, to the 3A State Tournament which is held in Manhattan at the KSU-Tointon Family Stadium May 25-26.