By Jon Akre

605 Sports

“The zone was a little bit bigger than what we were used to, but I enjoyed it,” said Doom of the strike zone. “It was a little bit bigger but if you’re hitting your spots, you can’t knock the guy.”

The game was a stalemate through the first seven innings, with Regas racking up 15 strikeouts and Doom, another 11 K’s. Until Michael Buitenbos ripped a double down the third base line.

“Try and hit the fastball. Look for the fastball and whack it,” said Buitenbos on his approach at the plate. “He had a heck of a slider, his curveball was excellent. But just try and jump on that fastball, and I was lucky enough to get it, and it was fair thank goodness.”

After the double, Buitenbos advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt, when a ground ball to shortstop by Sheldon Gant drove in the go-ahead run on a bang-bang play at the plate.

“It was the eighth inning and we had to make something out of it, and obviously it worked out in our favor,” said Buitenbos. “It was close, but I saw the ball kind of go by him and thought ‘Oh thank goodness’, and then touched home plate cause I wasn’t even close to home plate.”

But the game wasn’t over yet, and Doom found himself in a bases loaded, two-out situation the very next half-inning.

“Every single time I get up on the mound I think about when I was in high school I was in the state championship game up by one run and I ended up getting bases loaded, I walked in the tying run and walked in the losing run,” said Doom. “So every single time I get up on the mound with bases loaded, that picture comes into my head and I relive it everytime and it just fuels me.”

Doom worked a strikeout to get out of the jam in the eighth, and then closed it out in the ninth to take down the Mudcats.

“Going into it we kind of thought this was going to feel like a state championship game,” said Doom. “And it really did, it played out like one, it was neck and neck the whole time. It was just a battle.”

With the win, Platte advances to the second round in a rematch of their District 5B semifinal victory with the Alexandria Angels on Monday at 7:30 p.m.

“It’ll be good. Two Sunshine league teams going at it, Alexandria has a great team,” said Platte manager Todd Strand. “It’s going to come down to pitching again, and who can shut the other guy out. Can’t wait for Monday.”