ROCKVILLE — Reservoir baseball stifled opposing offenses all season long behind a dominant pitching staff and strong defense. The second-seeded Gators entered Tuesday evening’s Class 4A state semifinal against third-seeded Walter Johnson allowing an average of just 1.61 runs per game.

Reservoir pitched one of its two aces, senior Matt Russell, a Towson University commit. However, the Wildcats countered with their ace, Nolan Ross, who will play at Dickinson. In a duel, Ross outshined Russell with pure dominance.

The Walter Johnson starter put together a dazzling 13-strikeout performance as he allowed just two hits and overwhelmed the Gators with his fastball. Conversely, Russell struggled with his command throughout and walked six in five innings.

Walter Johnson scored seven runs in the sixth to break the game open and closed out a commanding 10-0 win in six innings. The Wildcats will face fourth-seeded Urbana in the Class 4A state championship game Friday night in Bowie at Prince George’s Stadium. The Hawks upended top-seed Broadneck, 9-7, in a 13-inning marathon in the night’s other semifinal.

“He mixes really well, we knew he was a great pitcher,” Reservoir coach Adam Leader said of Ross. “We worked to try to get to a place but without having somebody who throws like that, it’s difficult to do. I think our approaches were pretty good for the most part. I thought his fastball was a little faster than we were told about and our guys had trouble catching up. We haven’t really seen anything like that this year, so it’s difficult to emulate.”

The Wildcats didn’t hit the ball all over the park with just five hits, instead doing their damage with small ball. Leader and his Gators are typically renowned for their small ball prowess, but Walter Johnson executed that flawlessly. They ran four suicide squeezes and scored a run on each one as they didn’t miss a bunt the entire game. Bunting effectiveness catalyzed their seven-run inning that broke the game open.

Reservoir had its best chance to get on the board in the second. The Gators loaded the bases with Blake Smoot at the plate and ahead in the count, 3-0. However, Ross battled back to strike out Smoot and didn’t face any other danger the remainder of the evening.

While the Gators ran into an unstoppable ace, the impact that their two aces, Russell and Gavin Metrick, left on the program can’t be understated. They were the lynchpins in the rotation that pushed Reservoir to a 20-win season, including 15 straight wins and a share of the Howard County championship. They also spearheaded the Gators’ lineup at the top of the order in the No. 1 and 2 spots, respectively.

“We wouldn’t be playing today if it wasn’t for those two guys,” Leader said. “That’s what I told Matt before the game. Earlier in school, he was a little nervous and I said, ‘Listen, regardless of a win or loss today, we don’t play without you and what you’ve done this year.’ Those two and their leadership between on the mound or hitting, just really led this team in a great way. It was something that we needed this year. They are such great kids and workhorses. Their future is really bright and I’m excited that we have them for this year.”

Although Tuesday’s result is a bitter end, the Gators put together one of the best seasons in program history. They reached the state semifinal for just the third time in the program’s 23-year history and came a long way from a premature playoff exit in the regional semifinals last season.

The losses of Metrick and Russell will no doubt make a significant impact and be difficult to replicate, particularly in the Gators’ rotation. However, Reservoir is graduating only three starters and remains optimistic about replicating its offensive and defensive production in the future.

Broadneck suffers heartbreaking loss

Imagine you’re a Broadneck baseball player and you just watched two tying runs sprint across home plate in the bottom of the 13th. Imagine seeing the fly ball off Luke Smith’s bat hit the ground of Shirley Povich Field next to a diving Urbana outfielder.

The umpires gather to discuss and confirm the call. Broadneck screams — its season is still alive. They battled from an ugly beginning to a magical end. What mattered is that the Bruins kept fighting.

Then, imagine you’re Broadneck and you see the umpires meet again. The call gets overturned and ruled a foul ball. Smith then hits into the third out and Urbana wins the Class 4A semifinal 9-7.

Four hours earlier, Broadneck suffered an uncharacteristic defensive lapse to allow Urbana build a 5-0 lead. The Bruins shook it off and rallied to tie, twice — at 6 in the bottom of the sixth, and at 7 in the bottom of the eighth. To have another rally in the 13th and a potential first state final berth in 30 years ripped away by an overturned call following two umpire conferences left the Bruins players silent as Urbana streamed onto the field.

So what happened?

“The right fielder did not catch the ball, and that’s why the umpire signaled ‘no catch.’ But he says he touched the ball in foul territory,” Broadneck coach Matt Skrenchuk said. “When they got together as a group, they did not understand one another, and that’s why it came away saying it was a fair ball.”

The umpires met again to talk.

“I guess by the time (the umpire) got back to his position, he had to come back down and tell them he had that as a foul ball,” Skrenchuk said.

The Bruins coach absorbed the bitter, simple fact: the play was ultimately ruled a foul ball and rulings are out of a team’s control. That, in Skrenchuk’s opinion, doesn’t change how much his team was willing to give to try and fight for this victory.

Three infield errors produced Urbana’s first two runs in the top of the first. With bases loaded, starter Chase Hannon walked in the third. A single led to the fourth, and a sacrifice fly spawned the fifth.

“We could’ve very well rolled over,” Skrenchuk said, “and the game could’ve ended at that score. But to their credit, they battled to the very end.”

Nothing that could’ve deflated a team with a lesser spirit on Tuesday flattened Broadneck — not four inning-ending double plays, nor six unearned runs, nor a third out trying to steal home for the game-winner in extras. Even as the team met outside the stadium after it all, they raised their hands together as a team.

Broadneck responded with three hits in the bottom of the first and an RBI single by senior catcher Nick Cicale (3-for-6, 3 RBIs), an Army baseball commit. They pounded out 16 hits on the day. Sophomore shortstop Avik Cherry drove two runs home on Tuesday. Left fielder Aiden Casey shattered his bat to get on in the second, leading to Smith putting another two runs on the board. Broadneck held Urbana off the board with Hannon striking out two and the defense taking care of the rest. The Bruins finally tied it with three in the sixth.

Senior Noah Forman was the projected starter for a possible state final, and came on to relieve Hannon in the top of the seventh. Ideally, that would’ve been it.

But extra innings went on and on and Forman kept walking out to the mound as his pitch count rose to where he would’ve been unavailable had the Bruins advanced to Friday.

As the game droned on, more Bruins stepped up to pinch hit and pinch run. Others were called upon to play defense after sitting cold in the dugout.

“They’re selfless,” Skrenchuk said. “They just want to do whatever they can to help their teammates win. And a lot of them had success to help us extend the game to 13.”

Eight seniors with years of varsity experience and two county championships, and underclassmen who played as freshmen weren’t going to let a few bad moments “ruin their day,” Skrenchuk said.

“We have tough kids,” he said, “and they never felt like they were out of it. I’m very proud of them for that.”

— Katherine Fominykh

Have a news tip? Contact Jacob Steinberg at jsteinberg@baltsun.com, 443-442-9445 and x.com/jacobstein23. Contact Katherine Fominykh at kfominykh@baltsun.com or DM @capgazsports on Instagram.