Eleven pitches into Friday’s UIL 6A Division II baseball area championship game two, junior pitcher Hayes Broadhead found himself with runners on first and second with no outs. It prompted Senior catcher Hudson Byrd to walk to the bump for a mound visit. 

Whatever Byrd said worked as Broadhead got three outs in a row to close the threat. The junior pitcher went on to throw a complete game and seal a 5-1 Westlake (25-7-1) victory over Brandeis (19-8-1) to clinch Area championship Friday night at Woerner Field. After a three-game series against the Vipers in the previous round, head coach J.T. Blair said the Chaps played “good” in both games against the Broncos and was glad to “get the series over with.”

Broadhead clinched the series sweep with his ability to get tough outs. He utilized his breaking ball to get five total strikeouts, multiple of which were swing-and-misses.

He allowed one earned run and five hits.

“As [senior infielder] Holland [Page] likes to say, hitting the outside of the zone and controlling the zone,” Broadhead said of his breaking ball.

Broadhead said he had struggled with control in his previous two outings. He let up three walks to Vandegrift in game two of the Bi-District series and four walks to Dripping Springs in the final regular season series.

Inability to control the strike zone landed him in another taxing situation in Friday’s third inning. But unlike the previous two outings when it spiraled into heavy losses for the Chaps, Broadhead got out of the jam Friday with a 6-4-3 double play having given up only one earned run, the only one he’d allow the entire game.

“Last two outings were a little tough, I haven’t been there for my team, I’ve been down,” Broadhead said. “Tonight there was a shift in my mental approach to my game, and tonight I just won the battle up there.”

During Broadhead’s struggles, stellar postseason pitching from junior pitcher Parker Saltsman kept the Chaps winning. In his two playoff starts so far, Saltsman has thrown two complete games, allowed seven hits, zero earned runs, three walks and picked up 16 strikeouts. That included winning game one against the Broncos Thursday, 9-1.

Offensively on Friday, Page had three hits and one RBI and senior P/UT Quinton Moran had a hit and run of his own.

The support from the offense gave Broadhead enough room to work with in order to clinch the 5-1 win and Area Championship.

“We just know he’s going to give us a chance to win,” Blair said. “All he’s got to do is throw strikes and let ‘em make some contact and our defense is going to do what they do.”

The run support wasn’t nearly as much as Thursday’s game, which Blair put down to Friday’s Brandeis starter being “pretty deceptive.”

“He was throwing a little bit harder tonight than everybody thought he was,” Blair said. “The ball was kinda sneaking up on us a bit and we had some good looks but he did a good job of keeping them in the game.

The Chaps take on Pharr-San Juan-Alamo in the Regional Semifinals next week. The winner will move on to the Regional Finals to face the winner of the Dripping Springs and Alexander series.