Brady brilliant as Westlake tops Round Rock 7-1 to move on to regional semifinals
Jack Brady was simply too good.
Brady, Westlake’s junior pitcher who is more Jamie Moyer than Roger Clemens, struck out 10 in a complete-game gem Saturday to lead the Chaps to a 7-1 win over Round Rock in the deciding Game 3 of a Class 6A quarterfinal series at Concordia University.
“I honestly don’t even feel anything right now — it’s super-awesome,” said Brady, who only gave up four hits. “We put in the work for this. It’s really exciting and this is the best time of our lives so far right now. All we wanted was to move on.”
Brady seemed to get stronger as the game went along, retiring nine of the final 10 batters he faced to send Westlake into the regional semifinals and give the program its best postseason run since 2009.
“My slider was really on today,” he said. Westlake catcher Ben Longoria “and I have ultimate trust in it. I trusted him, trusted my defense and everything worked today.”
In one of the stranger offensive performances you’ll see, Westlake (36-4) didn’t score any of its runs directly off hits.
The Chaps were patient at the plate, extremely active on the base-paths with eight steals and took advantage of three Dragons errors.
“We’ve been aggressive on the base-paths all year and we’re going to stay that way,” Westlake coach J.T. Blair said. “We’re going to put pressure on the defense and cause chaos. We kept it on them today, and it feels great to advance. Our guys deserve all the accolades and the credit. We have a great group.”
Braeden Babb reached on an error, stole second, moved to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a wild pitch for the Chaps in the first.
Round Rock (30-7-1) answered with Tyler Tietz’s RBI single in the second, but the Chaps broke the game open with five runs over the fourth and fifth innings.
Cooper Berry, Will Magids and Sage Sanders drew walks, Ty Shapiro got hit by a pitch and Isaac Beeler hit a sacrifice fly for Westlake’s two runs in the fourth, while in the fifth, Berry’s single highlighted a three-run burst where Westlake’s aggressiveness running, an error and Nathan Duvall getting plunked came into play.
“We created action, and they couldn’t keep up,” said Westlake center fielder Isaac Beeler, who singled, stole second and third and scored on a double steal in the sixth for the Chaps’ final run. “We have to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We have a great team with a bunch of great guys and just need to keep doing the work.”
As creative and speedy as the Chaps were on the bases, the day belonged to Brady.
When he drew a groundball to second to end the game, he looked at the Westlake crowd, let out a jubilant yell and tossed his glove in the air as the other Chaps raced around the field.
“We have a bunch of other pitchers that are really good, and we were ready to go to them,” Blair said. “But he just kept grinding away. Earlier in the year we would have gone to some of our other guys, but today he didn’t let us — and that’s a tribute to him.”
Other scores
Class 6A
San Antonio Johnson 7, Lake Travis 1 (Johnson wins series 2-1)
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Westlake off to regional semifinals after taking Game 3 vs. Round Rock
