Tornadoes rally to crazy district semifinal win

In the postseason, it's all about "survive and advance."Even though the regular season didn't go exactly the way Columbian wanted, the Tornadoes have come together for a miraculous postseason run that looked like it might've ended Thursday in a Division III district semifinal, but this group just doesn't quit.TC actually got off to a good start Thursday with a 2-0 advantage after 2 ½ innings against Lexington at Tiffin University's Paradiso Complex, but after a horrendous bottom of the third for the Tornadoes, they trailed 8-2.Lexington smacked the ball around the diamond, and it was also aided by multiple TC mistakes in the field. The Minutemen had all of the momentum until the Tornadoes simply wouldn't give in. The Tornadoes plated five runs in the fourth and then tacked on seven more runs in the fifth to rally for a 14-6 victory.Both teams committed four errors as it surely wasn't the cleanest baseball played, but a win is a win in late May with your season on the line."We just rallied … I think the big thing was that that next half-inning we put up five runs that gave us a shot. If we go down 1-2-3 in that inning, it's a different ballgame probably," TC coach Nick Weber said. "We were at the bottom of the order that started the rally."The game within the game was the pitching situation for Columbian. Blake Gaulden started and went the first 2 1/3 innings. He gave up six runs, but none of those were actually earned. Weber and his staff made the decision to bring in ace Isaiah Tilse. Tilse actually did give up two runs on solid base hits from Lexington before getting out of the treacherous third frame. But then after tossing a clean fourth inning and with the lead now growing to 14-8, Weber had to contemplate yanking Tilse to try to save him for Saturday's final because he was close to the pitch count that would prevent him from pitching Saturday.So the Tornadoes turned to freshman Jaxon Little to get the final nine outs of the game. He allowed a single hit."We were in the dugout the whole time saying: 'Do we do it now? Do we do it now?' Weber said about when to put in Tilse. "Blake pitched really well, but he had some groundballs we didn't play well behind him, had a bunt we threw down the line, which that stuff happens, but even when Tilse came in and gave up three runs, we rallied."Then you have a six-run lead and have Tilse out there, in my mind I was asking myself can we go, but if we pull him and we give up this lead, I'm never going to sleep again. Went to Little and he was really efficient for us to close it out."In the first, Tilse drove in Little with a double to left field to get TC (11-15) on the board. In the third, Little walked, Tilse hit a single to center and then Bradley Willman reached on an error on a bad throw to first that scored Little.Then in the top of the fourth, Jamison Woessner singled and with two outs, Little was hit by a pitch, Jayce Arias drove in a run with a single up the gut, Tilse was intentionally walked, Willman made the Minutemen pay with a big two-run single to center and then Gaulden drove in a run with a single. But in the fifth, TC wasn't done.Woessner singled to center, Braden Egbert bunted for a single, Little walked, Arias drove in a run with a single to right, Tilse was hit by a pitch to send a run home and then Gaulden and Ethan Wilcox both drove in runs on bunt-singles before Woessner smoked a double to deep left off the fence that drove in the seventh run of the frame."I told the guys when they came in after that eight-run inning that we had chances, but we haven't punched anything through yet, but we're going to punch them through because I think we left four guys on base in the first two innings," Weber said. "Then we came out and started barreling baseballs, and I think that was our best day at the plate as a whole. We executed when we needed to execute and they trusted a two-out bunt to put some pressure on them and we did that. It was fun baseball."When you look at us, we're just a bunch of guys playing together right now. It's fun. We don't have the most skill, we don't have guys hitting bombs left and right, but we have guys that come in and play hard."The Tornadoes will now take on Wapakoneta (19-5) in the district final back at Paradiso Complex Saturday at 2 p.m. The Redskins blanked Ashland 4-0 in the other district semifinal.