The Charger baseball team still had a slim shot at a playoff spot heading into last Friday’s regular-season finale but had to win and then needed some help.
Neither happened as Buda Johnson rallied to beat Champion, while the team the Chargers needed to lose didn’t cooperate and won its game so even if the Chargers had won it wouldn’t have mattered.
Champion finishes the season at 15-11 overall and 8-8 in district under first-year coach Ben Woodchick.
The Chargers scored first in the game when Aidan Pickett put Champion ahead in the first inning, 1-0.
They held the lead until the fourth when the Jags scored 2 runs and then plated 2 more in the fifth for the 4-1 advantage.
Champion cut the lead in half with another run in the sixth to make it 4-2, but Johnson responded with 2 runs in the top of the seventh to pull ahead, 6-2.
Champion was fighting for its season and responded with 3 runs in the bottom of the seventh and was within a run at 6-5 but there were two outs and the Jags retired the next batter to end it.
Pickett, Ryan Brandon and Jacob Gresham had one hit and scored a run with Brandon hitting a double. Jordan Ballin, Connor Holtorf and Luke Hamilton singled, while Holtorf and Quinn Grable both picked up an RBI and Jacob Caraway and Evan Kuhl scored one run each.
Karson Kaiser went 6 innings and threw 105 pitches. He gave up 8 hits, 6 runs, struck out 2 and walked 3, while Holtorf threw in the final frame and yielded a hit and fanned 2.
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