Ross Yeager’s first hit of the day couldn’t have come at a better time when he hit a walk-off, two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning to complete a four-run rally for No. 3 seed Air Academy on Saturday at the 5A District 6 tournament.

The 5-4 win over Heritage sends the host Kadets (19-1) to the 5A regionals next weekend in Denver.

“I was 0-for-6 all day and I was just like ‘every at-bat counts’, you can turn around every at-bat,” Yeager said. “I passed on a couple at-bats and that one I just smashed it.”

His reward was a bucket of ice water dumped on him by his celebrating teammates, but Yeager didn’t seem to mind.

Catcher Matt Moore led off the inning with a double and later scored on a two-out single by Mike Bartlett. Bartlett and Bob Terry scored on Yeager’s double.

Kadets starting pitcher Dexter Price had a 1-0 lead heading into the top of the seventh.

Two errors and three singles proved costly as the No. 14 seed Eagles (15-6) scored four runs to go ahead 4-1.

“I knew we could do it, we just had to pull together as a team,” Price said of the rally. “This is the greatest moment of my life.”

Jared Brown pitched a two-hit shutout earlier for the Kadets to beat Bear Creek 2-0.

Heritage 1, Doherty 0Spartans starter Dakota Barr pitched a complete game but allowed eight walks. Heritage pitcher Mike Kazakoff struck out 11.

“You have to give a lot of the credit to their pitcher,” Spartans coach David DuBois said. “I was really proud with how the guys played. We were competitive and that’s all you can really ask.”

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