Carroll ace tosses another playoff gem, Dragons advance to state baseball championship
Southlake Carroll senior Griffin Herring continued to prove why he’s the best pitcher in the state on Friday at the Class 6A state tournament. The LSU commit was perfect through four and struck out 13 as the Dragons beat Fort Bend Ridge Point, 6-1, at Dell Diamond.
Herring (13-1) threw a complete game and allowed five hits.
He finished with 94 pitches.
Carroll (33-8), which is at the state tournament for the fourth time in the last five full seasons and 10th overall, advances to Saturday’s 6A state title game. Carroll, a 4-time champ, will play either defending champ Rockwall-Heath or San Antonio Reagan at 4 p.m. at Dell Diamond.
“I would say it went pretty well. Was executing with the fastball, that was my best pitch,” Herring said. “My teammates did an amazing job. Clark was great behind the plate as always.”
Carroll also beat Ridge Point, 17-0, in the 2019 6A title game.
“It was a great game,” Carroll coach Larry Vucan said. “Obviously it starts with Griffin. He did a great job. Made some good pitches and got ahead of the hitters. Kept his pitch count down which is what we needed him to do.”
It took Carroll four innings to finally put up a run in its last game, a 4-0 win over Keller in Game 2 of the 6A Region 1 final, but the Dragons wasted no time putting up a run for Herring on Friday.
Owen Proksch (Duke commit) led off the game with a single and scored as Ethan Mendoza (Arizona State) followed with a double down the left field line to give Carroll an early 1-0 lead.
“My dad told me I was going to get a first-pitch curveball because they throw a lot of off speed pitches and it was a curveball right down the middle and I was able to turn on it,” Mendoza said.
The Dragons would score a run in each of the first four innings, which were more than enough for Herring, who came into the game with a stellar 0.17 ERA this season. He also hadn’t allowed a run in the playoffs.
Tyler White singled in the second inning and Tyson Drake was hit by a pitch. Proksch walked to load the bases and courtesy runner Tanner Sumer came in to score on a wild pitch.
“We definitely put them on their heels and that’s how this team is,” Herring said. “We get on teams early and we just shut them down from there.”
Ben Tryon led off the third inning with a single to center and Max Reyes reached on a catcher’s interference. Nick Jones walked to load the bases and Clark Springs reached on a bobble at second to give Carroll a 3-0 lead.
After a pitching change and strikeout, Cole Bedwell hit a sac fly to center to bring home Reyes and give the Dragons a 4-0 lead.
Carroll added to its lead in the fourth inning when Mendoza got a one-out double to right field and scored on another Ridge Point error during Tryon’s at-bat. After a scoreless fifth inning, Carroll went up 6-0 in the top of the sixth on Mendoza’s third hit of the game.
Proksch hit a one-out triple to deep right center and scored on Mendoza’s second RBI.
Mendoza went 3 for 4 with two doubles, two RBI and one run scored.
“One run will do the job. Griffin has been crazy all year,” Mendoza said. “Best pitcher in the state for sure.”
Proksch, the projected starter on Saturday, went 2 for 3 with a triple, two runs and a walk. Carroll finished with eight hits and no errors. Ridge Point had five hits and five errors.
“Their a great club, we just came out on top,” Mendoza said. “We came out hot early which was key. Coach Vucan has been telling us to come out hot because it goes by really fast. It was just a great win for us.”
The Panthers finally got something going in the last inning with back-to-back doubles off Herring. A run from Travis Vlasek snapped Herring’s scoreless streak. He hadn’t allowed a run since April 14 (47 1/3 innings) and hadn’t allowed an earned run since March 25 (61 2/3 innings).
Herring then retired the next three on a fly out to left, a strikeout and a grounder to third.
The Panthers also had a scoring threat in the bottom of the sixth when they had runners on second and third with two outs, but Herring picked up his 12th strikeout to keep Ridge scoreless.
Herring could still pitch Saturday. He has 16 pitches left out of his 110-pitch limit. But if he doesn’t throw another pitch this weekend, he finishes the postseason 6-0 with 15 hits allowed, one run and 71 strikeouts.
“In the moment I was upset about it, but kind of looking back, that’s stupid,” Herring said. “Got a win, got the win for my team and I’m ecstatic about it.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2022 at 6:34 PM.