Columbia baseball tops Tallahassee Lincoln by one run, earns trip to first final four

LAKE CITY — Columbia head coach Chris Howard told multiple people that he was "too old for this" following Columbia baseball's 7-6 win over Tallahassee Lincoln on Monday night.

But whether Howard meant he was "too old" to deal with the roller-coaster-of-a-game his team had just played or that he was "too old" to join the team's dogpile following the Tigers' walk-off win over the Trojans is unclear.

Nonetheless, the Tigers came from behind to beat the Trojans in the Region 1-5A final, punching Columbia's ticket to the FHSAA final four for the first time in program history.

Here are takeaways from the game.

Baseball semifinals: Fort White, Dixie County both heading to state Final Four

Big win: Baseball: Columbia gets first playoff win since 2016 with 4-0 win over St. Augustine

Columbia defense comes up strong

Columbia junior catcher Hayden Gustavson played the full game with a bloodied thigh and a rip in his pants after forcing an out at home plate in the first inning.

With a runner on second, Lincoln senior Dalton Kuhn delivered a single that pushed up the middle out to Columbia's junior centerfielder, Matt Dumas, who connected with Gustavson to hose senior Adam Parzych and retire the Trojans, who had scored the game's first run.

"He's a warrior," Chris Howard said of Gustavson. "He's a gamer. And that's why he's committed to Florida State. He's a man among boys."

And that wouldn't be Dumas' first big throw of the night.

In the fourth inning, Lincoln's Eric Parker II shot a single out to Dumas, who found his cutoff in junior shortstop Brayden Thomas, who immediately made the throw home, where Gustavson once again made the tag to keep Lincoln at bay.

"The scary thing is we worked on that all day yesterday," Coach Howard said. "It's just weird that that happened."

Leading the defense from the mound against the Trojans was senior Truitt Todd, who pitched 6.1 innings, gave up seven hits, three earned runs and struck out three before reaching his pitch count.

Dumas was called to the mound to relieve Todd, who was responsible for a pair of runners on the base path. Columbia's closer immediately gave up a base hit, which loaded the bases with one out.

Lincoln went on to scratch across four runs in the top of the seventh, which gave the Trojans a 6-4 lead heading to the bottom of the frame.

Tigers' offense rallies late

After scoring one run in the first inning and three runs in the third inning, Columbia hung zeroes in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings as the Tigers' lineup struggled to notch base hits.

As Columbia returned to the dugout, trailing for the first time since the first inning, the Tigers knew it was do or die.

Lincoln senior Carson Kelly took the bump to close the game and gave up a walk to senior Chandler Howard, which brought the tying run to the plate in Gustavson (1-4, RBI), who put a hard-hit ground ball into play and reached on an error.

With runners on the corners and no outs, Todd (1-3, RBI, walk) drew a walk, which loaded the bases for Thomas (1-4, 2 RBI), who delivered the game-tying ground ball to knot the game up at 6-6 with no outs and runners on first and third.

"He's done it all year," Chris Howard said of Thomas. "We don't want anyone else up to bat but Brayden. We call him 'Lucky', but he seems to get it done every time."

After intentionally walking the bases full, making it so the defense could go anywhere with the ball for a force out, senior Ty Floyd (0-1, RBI) came through as the hero after smacking a 1-1 offering out to right field for a sacrifice fly that scored Thomas for the walk-off win.

Trojans' Cinderella season closes

Both teams left the ball field on Monday having ventured into unprecedented territory.

Lincoln head coach Mike Gauger watched his team, with an underwhelming 12-18 record, come an eyelash away from the state semifinal.

"I've been proud of them all year," he said. "Those guys never quit. They beat some really good teams at the end of the season to put themselves in this position. I didn't ever think they would just lay down."

Meanwhile, following Columbia's win over St. Augustine on May 10, Howard, who is in his first season at Columbia, said he didn't come into the season thinking the Tigers would see 20 wins — let alone 20 plus and a trip to the program's first final four.

"It's going to be a shock when we get into that stadium for some of the guys," Howard said. "We'll definitely have some deer-in-the-headlights looks."

Columbia, which was reseeded to the No. 2 spot in the Final Four, is set to take on No. 3 Eau Gallie on Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. from Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: High school baseball: Columbia headed to state semifinals for first time