SHELBY (Crawford County Now) — It was the rubber match for the season for Wynford and Colonel Crawford.

The two county and Northern 10 Athletic Conference rivals had identical records, split their two league games and were meeting for the third time in the district semifinal.

And while final score is indicative of two evenly matched teams, the route that got them there was anything but commonplace.

Colonel Crawford rallied for three runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game, then won it with a walk-off single by Grady Riggle in the eighth to stun Wynford, 6-5.

The Eagles will take on St. Henry — an 8-0 winner over Parkway — in the district final back at Shelby on Friday at 5 p.m.

“It was obviously an emotional game,” Eagles coach Jordan Oliver said. “We tried to emphasize to the kids that the score doesn’t matter till the bottom of the seventh inning, and it just turned out that — really the bottom of the eight I guess, in this case — and it turned out that the game went that way.”

The Royals entered the bottom of the seventh with a 5-2 lead and needed three outs for the win. But No.1 seed Colonel Crawford was not ready to have the season end.

Aided by a one-out error, Colonel Crawford (14-10) pounded out four hits in the inning, highlighted by Riggle’s two-run single.

Nate McCartney singled home Riggle with two outs to tie the game at 5-5 setting the stage for the eighth inning dramatics.

“In the seventh inning, we had a couple of errors and gave them three runs,” Wynford coach Tom Smith said. “That’s baseball.”

“A couple errors — that’s been our nemesis all year. We have games where we play clean and win and we have errors and we lose. That’s the difference in this game.”

The Royals grabbed the early lead in the second with a run on singles by Clay Rogers, Gage Massey, and Reed Johnson.

Wynford (13-11) tacked on three more in the third. Jaron Vance opened with a double, Collin Hulsmeyer singled, Brayden Campbell walked and Jaxon Tate doubled.

That looked like it might stand up, since Royals’ starting pitcher Drew Pope didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning. The Eagles pieced together a one-out single by Van Wintersteller, a walk to McCartney, and an RBI single by Jentsen Landon.

Colonel Crawford scratched out another in the fifth on consecutive one-out singles by Parker Weithman, Riggle, and Wintersteller.

“They’re obviously a good team. They’re the 1 seed, right?” Smith said of the Eagles. “They’re good. They’ve got a great team. As long as we play defense, we’re pretty good too.”

The Royals got an insurance run in the sixth. Pope singled with two outs, Reed Johnson walked, Jackson Rayborn was safe on an error, and Vance walked with the bases loaded.

The Eagles then mounted their improbable seventh inning rally to tie the game off Campbell in relief of Pope and send it to extra innings.

In the eighth, Joe Zizzo led off with a walk then went to third on a single by Brayden Holt. Zizzo ran through the stop sign by Oliver, beating the throw from the outfield and letting Holt go to second with no outs.

“I look up, I do see he (Oliver) has his hands up now,” Zizzo said. “But I was full go. I felt I was pretty quick on the jumps. I thought I could get there and it worked out.”

“We preach being aggressive on the bases and he bought into that and he’s got good speed,” Oliver said of Zizzo. “Hats off to Joe. It’s an awesome play by him.”

Smith then ordered Weithman to be intentionally walked to load the bases and Riggle hit a 1-0 pitch from reliever Campbell to score Zizzo with the game winner.

“Some of the seniors are obviously distraught after that loss,” Smith said. “They’ve been kind of the heart and soul of the team. Drew and Brayden have been our 1-2 punch on pitching. Those two have been our pitchers all year.

“Collin’s been really the team captain all year. He’s the guy that leads everything and Jackson Rayborn played a great right field for us.”

Oliver credited his team’s rally, in part, to their experience from last year, when they went to the regional tournament.

“We returned every guy but one from last year,” Oliver said. “We played three times here last year. Our guys are familiar with it.”

He credited the test Wynford offered.

“Our bars started to come around,” Oliver said. “Pope’s a very good pitcher, Brayden Campbell’s a very good pitcher, but you started to see our bats come alive.”

Oliver said the Eagles have unfinished business after escaping the district semifinal.

“They want to have a chance to go back to the regionals,” Oliver said. “At times, it looked good. At other times, we weren’t sure we could get back to this point.”

“We were hoping that insurance run was good,” Smith said. “It was a good game. We just came up on the wrong end today.”

Box score

Wynford                    013 001 00      5        8        2

Colonel Crawford   000 110 31      6      11        3

WP: Van Wintersteller (1 SO, 1 W)

LP: Brayden Campbell (1 SO, 2 W)

HR: None.

Triples: None.

Doubles: (W) Jaxon Tate, Jaron Vance.

Multiple hits: (W) Clay Rogers; (CC) Grady Riggle 3, Van Wintersteller 3, Parker Weithman.

Records: Wynford 13-11; Colonel Crawford 14-10.

Next: Wynford season over; Colonel Crawford vs. St. Henry, Division VI district final at Shelby, Friday, 5 p.m.