Massive two-out rally powers University into 3A baseball state title picture

GREELEY – When University baseball coach Casey Miller ponders the most previous meetings the Bulldogs have had with Eaton in the Class 3A baseball state tournament, he knows exactly what to be prepared for.

“Be ready for a delay tomorrow at some point,” Miller said. “It’s University vs. Eaton, weather delay. It’s nothing about the championship. We don’t count our chickens before they hatch and we knew that whoever we played today was going to be a tough game.”

Connor Weber went the distance and the Bulldogs put up six runs in the fourth inning, all with two outs, to beat Resurrection Christian 9-4 and punch their ticket back to Butch Butler Field for Saturday’s championship.

This is now the third year in a row that University and Eaton will clash for the 3A crown. Last year, the game was pushed to Monday because of adverse weather and when the two teams met last week, they got hit with an hour long lightning delay.

When asked for a forecast, 9News meteorologist Chris Bianchi says that the 10 a.m. game should be fine. If University wins and there’s a second game, “There could be some issues.” But it sounds like if there are, it won’t be anything that would force a delay into Sunday or Monday.

That’s just one of several issues awaiting tomorrow. But to get to tomorrow, the Bulldogs had to deal with today. Knowing they were facing Rez lefty Vaughn Green, the same pitcher who beat them earlier this season, they sent staff ace Weber to the mound and tried to grab momentum early.

The Cougars were coming off a thrilling seventh inning walk-off win over Coal Ridge keeping their hopes for a state title game appearance alive, but early runs from University doused those flames a bit.

Kaleb Tejada drove in Isaac Dellinger and Coel Croissant on a 2-RBI single in the first.

“Those two runs right away completely deflated them,” Weber said. “I know they were still up and energetic but I think those two runs just hit them right in the heart.”

They added another in the third on a Tejada sacrifice fly, then after Rez scored two in the top of the fourth, broke open a six-run half of their inning, powered by a Tejada 3-RBI triple. Through the course of the day, Tejada went 2-for-3 with 6 RBIs.

That allowed Weber to pitch with confidence and it gave him the leash needed for the Bulldogs to not have to dip into their bullpen.

“I was up there thinking that I cannot let someone else throw because that takes away from tomorrow,” Weber said. “With that lead, I knew that we could give up some runs and we’d be fine. I wanted to make sure that I stayed in the game and we didn’t have to waste another arm we could throw tomorrow. That was my motivation.”

He got dangerously close as he finished the game with 108 pitches, according to the University GameChanger account. That would’ve given him likely one final hitter to get the 21st out of the game, but he induced a Braedyn Budd fly out to left field to end the game.

The Bulldogs have every pitcher available for Saturday, with the exception of Weber. And they’ll try to throw the kitchen sink at Eaton and claim their first state title since 2019. But to have that opportunity, they had to accomplish the goal of being one of two teams able to play baseball on June 1.

“We’ve been saying it since February and so have the other 54 teams in 3A baseball, but we wanted to play baseball in June this year,” Miller said. “There are two teams that get to do it.”