One of Shelby’s youngsters helped move the ol’ coach to the cusp of another career milestone.
Freshman Eli Kelley’s RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning delivered host Shelby a 6-5 walk-off victory over Morley Stanwood in a Division 3 district opener Tuesday.
It’s the 599th career win for Shelby head baseball coach Brian Wright, the 42nd-year head coach, who has a chance to reach his next milestone when the Tigers (9-18) take on Hesperia (7-24) in a 10 a.m. district semifinal Saturday at Hart.
In his typical humble fashion, the impending milestone never came up in Wright’s report he submitted to CatchMark SportsNet, which heard from a family member instead.
“Eli is one of four freshmen who start,” Wright said. “He has been doing a nice job all season putting the bat on the ball and in the seventh he delivered our first walk-off win with a line-shot base hit.”
Cam Smith helped Shelby take an early 2-0 lead with his run-scoring hit. The Tigers extended their margin to 4-0 in the fourth inning on RBIs by Trey Waller and Lalo Garcia. They added an insurance run in the fifth for a 5-0 advantage.
Garcia had a no-hitter through six innings with 13 strikeouts, but he had to give up the ball because of the MHSAA’s pitch-count rule.
“Lalo was outstanding on the mound today, leading us to the victory,” Wright said.
Morley Stanwood tied the game at 5 before Shelby won it in the seventh.
Smith delivered a one-out double, Travis Boughan walked and both base runners advanced on a wild pitch. Kelley then came through with the game-winning RBI single.
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