No. 2 Woodford County (5-3) took down the No. 1 Lexington Catholic Knights (5-3-1) by a score of 2-1 in eight innings.

Lexington Catholic, playing without Kentucky commit Owen Jenkins for the fourth game in a row due to injury, handed the ball to Jack Reeves for the start.

The first two batters Reeves faced recorded hits, but Reeves worked out of the early jam when he pitched Midway commit Brayden Burton into a double play, then followed that with a ground out by Jonah Branham.

Woodford County was led by senior pitcher and fellow Midway commit Landon Heim, who allowed a leadoff single and his lone walk of the game early in the first, rebounded by striking out the next three batters to get out of the inning unscathed.

The fourth inning is where the scoring got started when Branham snuck a blooper behind the second baseman that fell for a base hit. While on the bases, Branham read the pitcher perfectly, allowing him to get big jumps and steal both second and third. A fly-out to center by senior JB Martin scored Branham and gave the Yellowjackets the lead.

Heim pitched a three-up, three-down inning with a strikeout in the fourth, but the inning did not go without controversy. A called third strike on senior Chris Vittitow led to a back-and-forth with the umpire, before Vittitow was ejected from the game.

The Knights took the energy created by the ejection into the fifth. Reeves recorded his first and only strikeouts of the game when he struck out back-to-back batters to lead off the fifth before junior Ryan Cecil grounded out to third to end the inning in just three batters.

The momentum continued for Lexington Catholic into the bottom of the fifth when junior Griffin Lane smoked a hard grounder past the second baseman for a leadoff single.

The Knights then used small ball to move the runner, with a sacrifice bunt by Jack White and a grounder to second by Eli Skinner that moved Lane to third with two outs. Benni Lawrence cashed in with another grounder past the second baseman to score Lane and tie the game 1-1.

Woodford County pulled Heim in the bottom of the seventh, choosing to go with fellow senior Nolan Asher, who shut the Knights down in three batters, recording two strikeouts.

Heim finished his six innings of work allowing one earned run on four hits and one walk while recording 10 strikeouts on the night.

“We were running fastball inside the whole game,” Heim said. “Then, we would do off-speed first pitch because they would catch onto the first pitch fastball, and that worked out really well.”

The Knights brought in junior Braden Tudor to pitch the eighth. Tudor struggled with control out of the bullpen, walking the first batter he faced and hitting the second. He settled in after that, popping up Cecil and striking out Justus Wertzler looking.

Burton was the hero for the Yellowjackets as he stepped to the plate again with two on and two out in the eighth and drilled a 2-2 line-drive to left-center to score one and give Woodford County the 2-1 lead.

“I knew the pitcher was struggling with his off-speed,” Burton said. “I was hunting fastball, and especially outside fastball to give my team the best chance to score.”

Asher closed it out for the Yellowjackets in the bottom of the inning with two more strikeouts and a ground out to solidify the win in extras.