The Logan County Cougars will play the opening game of the Fourth Region Baseball Tournament at Nick Denes Field at Western Kentucky University on Memorial Day.
The regional tournament starts at 10 a.m. Monday when District 13 champion Logan County (23-10) plays District 16 runner-up Metcalfe County (10-19). The second game of the day has District 15 champion Glasgow (21-14) battling District 14 runner-up South Warren (18-15).
The 4 p.m. contest features District 16 winner Russell County (25-10) matched against District 13 runner-up Franklin-Simpson (21-14). The champion of the Bowling Green district, Greenwood (27-8), and 15th District runner-up Allen County-Scottsville (12-18) will play in the nightcap.
Winners Monday move into semifinal play scheduled for 5 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Cougars would play that earlier game. The championship game will be Wednesday evening at 6:30.
In a March 30 11-0 romp at Metcalfe, Cougar sophomores Hunter Britt and Matt Harper combined on a three-hit shutout. Britt, who pitched brilliantly in shutting out F-S in the district finals Tuesday, gave up those three hits without a walk and with seven strikeouts in four innings. Harper struck out two of the three Hornets he faced.
Dustin Cartas, Caleb Bruner and Ian Woodall doubled in that win over Monday’s opponent. Gage Hales, Cartas, Harper, Bruner, Woodall and Ryan Basham all had two hits. Hales and Joe Holliday scored three runs each.
In Logan’s bracket, the Cougars beat Coach Sam Royse’s Glasgow Scotties 6-0 early in the season but have lost twice to Coach Chris Gage’s South Warren Spartans 7-5 and 15-11. The Spartans are the defending regional champions.
Russell County—as usual—is the unknown darkhorse in the region, as is also always true in basketball and softball. Coach David Rexroat’s Lakers are 10-0 in the region, but the only two teams in the tournament they’ve faced are the only ones with losing records, Metcalfe and AC-S.
In order, the teams with the best winning percentage in the region are Russell County (10-0), Greenwood (19-2), South Warren (14-7), Logan County (12-7), Glasgow (13-8), F-S (9-7), AC-S (9-13) and Metcalfe County (3-11).
This is the 13th time in 14 seasons that the Cougars have reached the region, all under Coach Ethan Meguiar, 7 of them as a champion. It’s the 10th straight regional appearance for Logan County.