Niceville baseball advances to 5A regional finals

By ADAM PRUIETT

adamp@nwfdailynews.com

NICEVILLE - Talk about an anticlimax.

After two electrifying pitching performances, a gutsy comeback by Pace and a resilient response by Niceville, the Class 5A regional baseball semifinal between the Eagles and Patriots came down to a ... balk.

The 3-2 loss to Niceville at The Hill on Friday must have felt like a punch to the gut for Pace.

And the Eagles? Well, the decisive run might as well have been a walk-off homer.

"I'll take it. It's a win," said Niceville shortstop Robby Campbell, who had two of the Eagles' four hits and paved the way to the victory by leading off the seventh inning with a single.

Brett DeVall notched his third win of the postseason for Niceville (20-10), which will host Gainesville in the best-of-three regional finals starting May 9. Invincible as he may seem, DeVall, one of the top pitching prospects in the nation who had allowed three earned runs all year, finally looked human in the seventh inning when he started laboring.

Pitching on two days rest, DeVall's scoreless innings streak in the postseason was stopped at 18 when Pace scored two runs to tie it up. Down to their last out of the season, the Patriots got consecutive hits from C.T. Bradford, Ryan Sorce and Boone Shear, the latter of which brought in both runs.

Niceville, no stranger to adversity this season, immediately struck back against Bradford, who matched DeVall with his own brilliant outing. After Campbell singled leading off, Michael Wells drilled an opposite-field double that caromed off the left-field fence.

That brought up Cody Balkcom, but the game would end before he saw a pitch. From the rubber, Bradford took a step back as if starting his windup, but then he stepped off the rubber with his other foot as well. Balkcom immediately turned to the home plate umpire and asked if Bradford balked, and an instant later the umpire pointed toward the plate, signaling the winning run across.

"That's very interesting. I've never seen that before. It's a first," Campbell said of a game decided on a balk.

Niceville defeated Pace for the third time in four games this season, but it wasn't easy thanks to Bradford. After allowing a solo homer to Josh McDorman in the first inning and an unearned run in the second, he dominated the Eagles until the seventh, retiring 14 of 15 batters at one point.

"C.T. Bradford is a heck of a pitcher," Niceville coach Kevin Berry said. " ... He changed his speeds well and kept us off balance.

" ... We came away with the hits when we needed them, and that's all that counts."

Bradford allowed four hits, no walks and struck out five, while DeVall surrendered six hits, walked two and fanned seven.

"The team came up big for me today," DeVall said, "and I'm just appreciative of that."

Pace               000 000 2 - 2 6 2

Niceville        110 000 1 - 3 4 1

W: Brett DeVall L: C.T. Bradford