Republic baseball season ends after opening upset

Republic's baseball season ended Thursday night with a 6-4 loss at Ozark in the Class 6 District 6 semifinals, a day after the eighth-seeded Tigers shocked top-seeded Glendale 3-2 in eight innings to open the tournament.

Against top-seeded Glendale, the Tigers struck first in the top of the first inning. Nolan Lashley led off with a single and moved to second on an error in the outfield. Cooper Thomas sacrificed him to third. Landon Blankenship walked, and Brennan Overstreet's groundout scored Lashley. Landon Perkins followed with an RBI single to plate Blankenship, making it 2-0.

Glendale cut the lead to 2-1 in the third on an error and tied the game in the sixth.  The Falcons threatened again in the seventh, putting two runners on with one out, including an intentional walk to Brady Yates. Overstreet got pinch-hitter Colin Roach to pop out to third baseman Greg Hicks to escape the inning.

Lashley led off the eighth with his third single of the game, and with two outs, Overstreet lined a single to center to bring him home.

Overstreet went back to the mound to finish what he started. He allowed a leadoff single to Ransdell, then recorded a fielder's choice, a popout and a groundout to end it. The complete game took 97 pitches, 66 for strikes. Overstreet allowed two runs — one earned — on six hits, with four strikeouts and four walks.

Lashley finished 3-for-4 with two runs scored. Perkins went 2-for-3 with an RBI and a walk. Overstreet drove in two runs.

"I've been doing this for a while and I know that anything can happen in the postseason, and we just needed to go out and believe we can win," Plotner said. "We played really good the last four games of the regular season, (and) had a little bit of momentum going. Brennan was fantastic."

The Tigers came out the same way Thursday but couldn't make it stick. Lashley led off the game with a single and scored on Overstreet's groundout for a 1-0 lead. Ozark answered in the bottom of the first on Luke Baer's line-drive single, then added three more in the second.

Overstreet's RBI single in the third scored Carter Coggin and cut the deficit to 4-2, but Ozark got the run back in the fourth to make it 5-2.

Republic answered with two in the fifth when Lashley and Overstreet each scored a run. Ozark scored an insurance run in the bottom of the fifth to take a 6-4 lead, and that's where it stayed.

The Tigers put the tying run on base in each of the last two innings but couldn't bring it home. Down 6-4 in the sixth, Maddox West and Connell singled before Logan Kirkland entered in relief and got Lashley to ground into a 4-6-3 double play. Thomas led off the seventh with a single, but Kirkland got Blankenship to ground into a 1-6-3 double play to put out the fire.

Republic out-hit Ozark 9-7. Overstreet led the Tigers at the plate with two hits and three RBIs. Lashley added two hits and scored twice. Thomas had three hits and threw all six innings, allowing six runs on seven hits with one strikeout, two walks and four hit batters.

The semifinal loss ended the high school careers of seniors Preston McCracken and Kyler Tate. It was also the final game for Curt Plotner, who has been part of the Republic baseball program since 2010 and head coach since 2018. Plotner went 126-116 in eight seasons. Republic was 72-101 in the eight seasons before he took over.