Kim North REGIONAL CHAMPS — Members of the Madonna baseball team gather with their W.Va. Class A Region I Championship trophy following a 4-1 victory over host Cameron on Friday night in Marshall County. The win marked the second consecutive season that the Blue Dons have ended the Dragons season on their home field.

CAMERON – Following a 6-5 victory over Madonna on May 20 in the winner’s bracket of the W.Va. Class A Region I baseball tournament inside WVU’s Kendrick Family Ballpark in Morgantown, Cameron found itself in the driver’s seat of the double-elimination event.

However, the fourth-seeded Blue Dons (14-13) kicked into high gear and, after ousting Clarksburg Notre Dame on Wednesday at Oak Glen High School’s Field of Dreams, they took it another notch higher and swept a pair of games from the top-seeded Dragons (24-10), including Friday’s 4-1 triumph to punch their ticket to the state tournament at Marshall University in Huntington next week. They had won, 7-5, on Thursday to set up the winner-take-all contest.

“We came in and executed our game plan. Jacob (Lezear) did a great job yesterday (Thursday) and Evan Kaczmarek had another great outing today,” a jubilant Madonna head coach T.J. Miller said. “Today we played a lot more fundamental baseball and our approaches at the plate were so much better. The kids bought in. We lived on the right side of the field today, and it paid off.

“I’m super excited for these guys. They’ve put in so much work and we’ve been getting better and little at a time,” Miller added. “As a coach, you always want to get hot at the end of the season, and I think we’ve done just that. These guys earned this. It’s been a growing pains season for us, but we’re headed to Huntington and the state tournament. It feels really good.”

The win also improved Madonna’s all-time record against Cameron to 33-8 and marked the second straight year the Blue Dons ended a fine season by the Dragons in Marshall County.

“It’s a tough one, but the kids battled through,” Cameron head coach Adam Angel said. “Give Madonna credit. They put pressure on us yesterday (Thursday) and did so again today. We kind of buckled under that pressure on Thursday and today we never got our offense untracked.”

Madonna scored a run in the first when Sam Brooks singled in Maddox Bowen. The Blue Dons made it 3-0 in the third as Connor Lancaster was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force in Jacob Lazear and Brennen Gray – the No. 9 hitter in the lineup – stroked an 0-2 pitch back up the middle to score winning pitcher Evan Kaczmarek.

Brooks had another run-scoring base hit in the fourth as the margin increased to 4-0 when Lazear touched the plate.

That was plenty of support for Kaczmarek. The right-hander carried a no-hitter into the sixth until Anthony Bellanco’s shot up the middle was slowed down by Kaczmarek’s glove, but not enough to keep the Dragons’ catcher from reaching safely. Talan Brown then reached on an error and Soier Reed walked to load the bases with two out. However, Kaczmarek induced a 4-3 groundout on a bang-bang play at first to escape damage.

Kaczmarek struck out nine, walked one, hit one and yielded three singles – two by Bellanco – and a run-producing one off the bat of Brown that spoiled the shutout with two out in the seventh. Kaczmarek threw 99 pitches, of which 69 were strikes.

“Evan has had some good days and he’s had some rough days, but today was one of his better outings,” Miller advised. “He pitched well.”

Brooks and Kaczmarek each singled twice for the Blue Dons.