Silex Owls Take Third At State Championship
Silex Coach Kent Hufty says he is proud of his Owls as the boys collected a third place finish at state and came up just short in the semifinals last week.
Stormy weather forced the semifinal to be postponed so the third place game was not played this year, which is the same as the last time the Owls went to state in 2014.
After jumping out to a lead over Seymour early in the semifinal game on Thursday, the Owls ended up in an extra inning before falling to the Tigers, 5-4. Silex didn’t get the opportunity to take on Skyline in the third place game.
Instead the boys were presented a trophy and individual medals at CarShield Field in O’Fallon last Thursday afternoon.
The Owls took the lead early scoring two runs in the first inning. Colby Gruenloh and Blake Thoroughman each walked to lead things off. Brian Henke plated a run with a double and Tommy Grote picked up an RBI with a ground-out to short.
Silex went up 3-0 in the second as Thoroughman walked again with two out and it was Henke again with another double to score the run.
Seymour scored a run in the bottom of the second.
The Owls put another tally on the board in the fourth inning. With one out, Daniel Havlik singled and scored on an error.
Seymour got another run in the bottom of the fourth as a walk came around to score on a sac fly.
The Tigers tied the game in the bottom of the fifth as they capitalized on a couple of errors to knot the game at 4-4.
That’s how it stayed until the bottom of the eighth inning when Seymour scored to end the game and advance to the championship.
Henke went five innings for the Owls until he reached his pitch total. He surrendered four runs on three hits and struck out nine.
Dillon Magill pitched in relief and gave up a run on two hits and struck out two.
Henke was 3-3 for the day with a pair of RBI doubles, a single and a walk. Daniel Havlik was 2-4 with a run scored. Thoroughman scored a couple of runs and Grote had an RBI for the day.
Henke earned the Community State Bank TribCast Player of the Game for his efforts.
The game can be accessed in the TribCast archive.
Ellington defeated Seymour in the state championship.
