The regular season baseball meeting between Hillcrest Academy and Lone Tree deserved an encore, and Saturday’s first round district meeting at Burlington Notre Dame did not disappoint. After a 14-13 win earlier this year, the Lions completed a season sweep of the Ravens Saturday by a 10-7 score. The Ravens came flying out of the gate, putting up four runs in the top of the first against Lone Tree starter Josh Mills. Noah Miller, Eli Ours, Drew Blauvelt and Kobe Borntrager all came home in the inning with Blauvelt and Luke Schrock supplying RBI hits to key the early lead. The Ravens added one more in the second to go up 5-1 on a London Schrock RBI single that scored Miller. From there the Lions took over.

Lone Tree sent 11 men to the plate in a six run second inning. Cade Shield, Adam Knock, Harmon Miller, Cale Yoder, Xavier Hayes and Alex Viner all scored in the frame with the big hits coming from Viner, a two RBI double and Tim Mills a three RBI double with the bases loaded. After the game, Mills talked with KCII sports about the at bat. “We were down, I knew we just needed to get ahead and it’s been kind of my role all year to drive in runs. I’ve been hitting the ball better than I ever have. With that ball it was one of the best feelings. When it comes off the bat and you know it’s a good hit and it’s getting down you’re just hoping as many guys can get in as possible.”

Up 7-5 the Lions weren’t satisfied, they posted two more in the third when Shield and Pourroy scored and one more in the fourth when Cale Yoder came home on a balk. Hillcrest threatened late. Down 10-5, the Ravens scratched a run across in the sixth to get within 10-6 and another in the seventh to pull within 10-7 and had the bases loaded before Harmon Miller got a strikeout to end the game. After the contest, Lone Tree head coach Mike Close talked about his team’s effort. “Just giving ourselves a chance, moving runners around. We have good enough speed that if we do that we can make things happen. Tim’s (Mills) has been doing it all year as far as being an RBI guy for us. Alex (Viner)’s at bat was also big. We just talked about being aggressive with guys in scoring position and making this happen, so I was proud of both of those at bats. We just wanted to make sure that if we had opportunities we were making them. We didn’t play a perfect game defensively, but, we made enough plays to win and that’s what we talked about.”

Eight of the nine Lions in the starting lineup had at least one run scored, seven had at least one hit. Mills went two for three on the day with four driven in, Cale Yoder was three for four at the plate. Josh Mills recorded the win for Lone Tree on the hill. The starter went three and a third innings, giving up six hits, five runs, two earned, walked one and struck out four. On the Hillcrest side of the ledger, Noah Miller, London Schrock and Drew Blauvelt all had two hits, Blauvelt and Schrock each drove in one. The Ravens say goodbye to seniors Blauvelt and Borntrager as they wrap up a 5-6 season. Lone Tree advances to Tuesday’s district semifinal against No. 12 Burlington Notre Dame in Burlington. The Nike’s were a 20-0 winner over Winfield-Mt. Union Saturday.