Roff dumps Dover in semis

Bob Forrest Sports Writer

Oklahoma City — Roff's 14-1 run-rule semifinal rout of Dover Friday at the Class B state tournament at Dolese Park might have been a measuring stick of just how far the Tigers have moved forward in the space of a few months.

In the fall of 2007 and again last spring, Roff had to sweat out one-run semifinal victories, beating Red Oak last fall on a walkoff home run by Logan Reed in the bottom of the eighth inning and Dover in the spring, when the Longhorns had the tying run at third base with nobody out in seventh and didn’t score. Friday, though, the Tigers eliminated the drama — and any doubt about the outcome — in their first two at-bats.

Roff (36-2) scored five times in the first to wipe out an early 1-0 deficit, then put the game away with nine more runs in the second. That was more than enough support for starting pitcher Aaron Cornell, who allowed just three singles over four innings and teamed with fellow junior Brendan McCurry on a four-hitter. The victory set up a championship game rematch with No. 2 Red Oak, which beat Vici Friday and manhandled Roff, 15-5, in the Class B title game in the spring.

“I feel a lot better in my gut than I did yesterday,” said Roff coach Ead Simon, who wasn’t pleased that his top-ranked club needed six innings in Thursday’s opening round to finally put away defending fall state champ Tupelo after the Tigers from Coal County entered the state tournament this fall with a 14-20 record. “I liked our mentality in the dugout today. I liked our focus.”

Although Roff managed just one home run — a grand slam by seven-hole hitter Shawn Thurman in the second inning Friday — over 11 innings in the wins over Tupelo and Dover, the Tigers banged out 24 hits, eight of them for extra bases, in the two games. Simon had shuffled the bottom three spots in his lineup for most of the season while looking for some offense from that part of the order, but he saw his 7-8-9 hitters go a combined 7-for-14 with four runs scored and seven RBIs Thursday and Friday.

“It makes us a pretty good hitting ball club when those guys produce like that,” Simon said.

The one constant at the bottom of the Roff order in both games was Thurman, who was 1-for-2 with a run scored and an RBI against Tupelo and came back with his first career postseason home run to highlight a 2-for-4 effort Friday. Eight-hole hitter Ryan Cornell was 2-for-2 with a run scored and an RBI, and Dalton Day had a hit and a run scored and reached base twice in three plate appearances from the nine-hole Friday.

Meanwhile, the top six in the Tiger lineup — Cornell, Kord Kile, Dayne Parker, McCurry, Taylor Whitis and Blake Logan — just continued to do what they’ve done all season.

Cornell was 2-for-2 Friday with three runs scored and a two-run double to cap Roff’s second-inning explosion; Kile was 2-for-3 with a run scored and RBI singles in the first and second innings; Parker had an RBI single in the second and scored twice; McCurry was the only starter without a hit, but he scored twice; Whitis doubled home a run in the first and scored two runs; and Logan also had an RBI double in the first and scored later in the inning on Ryan Cornell’s bloop single to right.

Aaron Cornell (9-1) surrendered two hits and Dover’s only run — on a two-out single to right by Christian Pacheco — in the top of the first inning, then settled down to allow just one baserunner the rest of the way. He struck out five and didn’t walk a batter while taking over the team lead in victories.

Cornell was hit by the second pitch of the game from dover wstarter Jake Hoover, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on Kile’s line-drive single to right. Kile was erased at second on Parker’s fielder’s choice grounder, but Parker scored on a three-base error on McCurry’s line drive to left, and Whitis plated McCurry with a double to left-center. Logan followed with a fly-ball double to the wall in left to plate the fourth run of the game and scored the fifth run on Cornell’s single, which landed in no-man’s land in shallow right.

Day, who didn’t start Thursday, singled to left to ignite the big Roff second inning, which was fueld by Dover’s only two errors of the game and featured Thurman’s two-out blast to left — following Parker’s RBI single and walks to McCurry and Whitis. Ryan Cornell and Day walked following the home run, and both scored on Cornell’s second hit in the inning, a double to wall in left-center.