Bradley Central got a bit of sweet revenge Monday night.
In 2014, then sophomore pitcher T.J. Webb of Cookeville High School helped eliminate the Bears from the postseason.
Bradley returned the favor two years later, knocking off the Cavaliers, 4-1, on Monday in the Region 3-3A baseball tournament at the Toby McKenzie Baseball Complex in Cleveland.
This time, Webb was facing the masterful Brandon Thompson, who is unbeaten in 10 games this season. Thompson checked Cookeville on three hits in a sterling complete-game effort. He struck out six and hit a batter.
“Anytime we run Brandon out there that’s your game,” Bears coach Travis Adams said in a telephone interview. “It seems like we play good behind him and once we punched an early run across I just felt our team wanted to do everything they could to get him some runs.
“And he squashed every inning against Cookeville all night long. He was ahead in the count, kept the leadoff batter off base and it was a pretty impressive performance against a team that went 14-1 in their district and their kid was unbeaten with a 1-something ERA.”
Bradley (27-6) advanced to the region championship game on Wednesday and will play at Rhea County at 7 p.m. The Golden Eagles routed Ooltewah, 11-1, to earn a shot at the title.
While Thompson was shutting Cookeville (27-11) out through five innings, his teammates were pecking away for runs.
In the first inning, Cason Still, who went 3 for 4, singled and moved to second on Jake Presley’s sacrifice bunt. Tyler Carpenter walked and Dylan Standifer singled to score Still with the game’s first run.
An inning later with two out, Hunter James reached on a fielder’s choice, went to second on a passed ball and scored on another Still hit.
Jeremiah Sims started the fourth with a walk. Colton Cross, running for Sims, went to second on a balk and Gunnar Norwood put down a sacrifice bunt to move Cross to third. James’ suicide squeeze bunt scored Cross and James reached first safely.
Still’s final hit put runners at first and second. Both moved up on a passed ball and Presley’s sacrifice fly sent James home with the Bears’ fourth run.
“That kid (Webb) handled us pretty good in 2004,” Adams said, “and we put that on the boards for our kids to see. It was a subtle message for them to look at, something to stir the pot. It was 700-something days until we faced him again, but they were ready for him.”
Rhea County 11, Ooltewah 1: The Golden Eagles broke open a 1-1 game by scoring 10 runs in the fourth and fifth innings to bring an end to the Owls’ season.
The Eagles were aided by Ooltewah pitching that walked seven and hit two.
And Rhea pitcher Braxton Dieckhaus (13-2) held the Owls to three hits.
Ooltewah (23-16) took a second-inning lead when Andy Reed doubled, went to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a Rhea County fielding error.
The Eagles tied the game in the third.
Cameron Wilkerson highlighted Rhea’s six-run fourth with a grand slam and the winners added four more in the fifth for a mercy-rule ending to the game.
The Owls outhit the Eagles, 6-5, but Ooltewah’s three errors didn’t help its chances of reaching the region final on Wednesday.
“We finished really strong this year,” Owls coach Brian Hitchcox said via telephone. “Our guys bought into hustling, taking a lot of bases and played great down the back stretch of the schedule to get us out of the district. We started out 5-8 and got better by playing more consistently, but we still had our moments of inconsistency.
“We just couldn’t totally shake the inconsistency bug and it hit us again tonight.”
Boxscores
Cookeville 000 001 0 – 1 3 1
Bradley Central 110 200 0 – 4 6 2
WP – Thompson (10-0); LP – T.J. Webb.
Ooltewah 010 00 – 1 6 3
Rhea County 001 64 – 11 5 1
WP – Dieckhaus; LP – Duncan.
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)