SHELBYVILLE
Don’t look now, but Big Mo has made himself comfortable in Franklin’s dugout.
If Grizzly Cubs coach Jeremy McKinney has his way, the big fella’s stay will last throughout the postseason, which Franklin extended on Monday evening with its first sectional championship in 11 years.
The Cubs defeated host Shelbyville, 6-3, in a sectional title game, earning them a Class 4A regional berth.
On paper, this wasn’t necessarily the Franklin team projected to end the program’s sectional drought, which is what’s making it so dangerous in the first place.
“I’ve always lived by the underdog mentality. I like to be looked at as the underdogs because I like when people overlook us,” McKinney said. “This group battles well. They battle hard. They don’t give up. They stay in the fight constantly, and I couldn’t be prouder of all these guys.
“And that’s everybody. We have the greatest fans ever. The energy. The enthusiasm. It all came together, and it was absolutely fantastic.”
Franklin (17-10) raced to a 6-0 lead through six innings, then watched the Golden Bears add a dash of suspense to the proceedings with three runs in the top of the seventh.
Cubs’ starting pitcher Braeden Burton made it through the top three batters in the seventh, capping a clutch performance in which the junior allowed five hits and struck out 11.
Burton badly wanted to pitch a complete game, but his coach felt differently.
“Absolutely not. No,” said Burton when asked if he was ready to make the walk to his team’s dugout. “I knew I still had something in me. Three more outs, and that’s it. But I trust our bullpen.
“This is the team that no one expected. The past two years were the teams everyone expected, but we came into this whole thing as underdogs. We stuck with the underdog mentality, and here we are. Sectional champions.”
Aiden Smith, one of the state’s premier sophomores, got the pitching start for Shelbyville and took the loss.
Smith fanned the first two Grizzly Cub hitters he faced in the bottom of the second inning, but a walk to Burton and three passed balls led to the game’s first run.
Franklin’s No. 8 hitter, senior outfielder Tyler Jones, struck out. However, the ball glanced off the mitt of senior catcher Luke Jackson, allowing Jones to sprint to first base — he made it safely with a headfirst slide — and Burton to score.
McKinney’s squad put three more runs on the board in the third, a sequence that began when freshman second baseman Carsten Bland sent a 0-1 offering to the warning track in left center for a double. The next batter, soph Owen Bullington, chalked up a double to bring Bland home. First baseman Blake Smythe walked, senior third baseman Trevor Launonen made it to first on a Golden Bear error and Burton’s sacrifice fly to left made it a 3-0 score. The Grizzly Cubs added another run on a wild pitch.
Burton’s leadoff single in the top of the sixth inning set up a two-run home run by sophomore center fielder Greyson Betts — his first of the season — off of Shelbyville reliever Luke Brinkman.
Senior Brooks McNicholas relieved Burton and struck out the first batter he faced in the seventh, but he experienced some control issues with a hit batter and a walk before handing the baseball to freshman lefty Gunner Wade.
Wade notched the final two outs with strikeouts.
“Totally confident. Gunner’s been really good for us all year,” McKinney said. “The kid doesn’t think in pressure. He just goes out and throws, and I love that about him. I would give him the ball every time if I could.”
The coach saved plenty of praise for Burton as well.
“Awesome,” said McKinney, who played on that last Franklin sectional champion in 2013. “Back in 2013, when I did the same thing, if my coach would’ve came to me and said, ‘Hey, give me the ball,’ it probably would’ve been a fistfight.
“And I respect Braeden for doing that. I don’t blame him for what he did. It’s never easy having to pull someone out who has given us their all. But at the same time, we’re not done. We still have other games to play.”
Launonen, one of only two senior starters for the Grizzly Cubs, is glad he got to experience this before joining the Air Force immediately after the season is over.
“This feels surreal. This year, everyone counted us out, and we didn’t let that control us,” said Launonen, who feels the team’s 10-3 win at Roncalli on May 18 might have been the outing that provided the swagger Franklin has now.
“We just got hot off the bat, and we just kept it going. Roncalli was a good team. They beat Center Grove, which we lost to earlier in the year. It was just a big moment getting those gears going.”
