Within Class 4 of Missouri high school baseball, Boone County features two top-five teams: No. 2 Southern Boone (27-8) and No. 4 Tolton (19-8). These two teams have similar paths over the last three seasons and will compete in the Class 4 District 8 Tournament in Ashland.
Southern Boone enters next week's district tournament as the No. 1 seed. The Eagles are led by the most successful senior class in program history, which features Austin Evans, Chase Morris, Jace Reynolds and Ryker Zimmerman. The class has 109 wins and a 2022 state title to its name.
"They’re all good kids, too,” Southern Boone coach Brian Ash said. “They all have great GPA’s are all going to go on and do good things in college and after college. So, it’s the winningest group of seniors I’ve ever coached and I’ve coached, some really good classes, but this one, I mean, they exceed them all.”
On the other side of the five-team bracket, the No. 2-seeded Trailblazers have pieces from their 2022 Class 3 state title run in seniors Cameron Lee and Jake Ryan and junior Lucas Weitholder.
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“It’s huge,” Tolton coach Ehrich Chick said. “The leadership of that and that experience is huge.”
The teams met Thursday night for the first time since their championship seasons ahead of next week and, not surprisingly, an exciting game was the result.
Southern Boone raced to a four-run lead, but Tolton cut it to a one-run game in the third behind Weitholder and Max Kiecher. Jace Reynolds and Zimmerman gave the Eagles breathing room after that, though, helping Southern Boone to a 6-3 victory.
While both teams displayed fireworks, they also didn’t reveal too much ahead of districts. The contest may not have been as intense as it could’ve been, but both teams still wanted to beat each other due to the competitive spirit.
“I’m happy for our seniors to get a win in the last regular-season game, and obviously, Tolton, it’s always a competitive game,” Ash said. "We understand they did not throw any of their top guys. I know they had a game against Jeff City, and they had a busy week, so some of them were unavailable, some were available, but I don’t think they wanted to show us much.”
Chick reiterated the same message.
“It allows both of us to see each other, see what we got, but obviously, both teams aren’t showing everything either, so there’s always something up both of our sleeves, so we’ll be ready,” he said.
Both teams could meet again for the district title on May 16, but Ash and Chick aren’t looking too far ahead. Both know they can’t overlook their second-round district games on May 14. Last season, Fulton bounced Tolton and Southern Boone in the first and second rounds in districts as a lower seed.
While Ash was happy about Thursday's win, he acknowledged areas the Eagles still need to improve.
“We had some dead innings and I think we left eight runners in scoring position,” Ash said. “We got to do a better job of having more focused at bats in those situations.”
It’s something that plagued the Eagles last season against Fulton.
“Very similar game (to this one), we left guys in scoring position and we were up one run in the top of the seventh and they pushed two runs across on a little flare hit over my shortstop and they took a lead and that was it,” Ash said.
The district tournament opens Monday with fourth-seeded Centralia (11-13) and fifth-seeded Hallsville (7-21), playing at 6 p.m. The Eagles will take on the winner at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, followed by Tolton vs. third-seeded Mexico. All games will be in Ashland.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Southern Boone, Tolton baseball eye a collision course to district final showdown
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