It’ll be the top two seeds in the Class Two, District Seven baseball tournament squaring off against each other Wednesday, May 20 when Salisbury does battle against the host team Fayette.

Those two squads earned their way into the title matchup after winning their semifinal contests Monday at Estes Field on the Central Methodist University campus, with Salisbury beating Westran, 11-1 in five innings prior to Fayette posting a 4-1 victory over Marceline.

The top-seeded Panthers won their 14th contest in a row and improved to 19-2 overall by pulling away from Westran in the third and fourth innings. Salisbury scratched across a run to lead 1-0 after the first frame before scoring three times on four hits in the third, making it 4-0. The Panthers then left no doubt by tallying six unearned runs after two were out in the fourth, widening it to 10-1 at the time. A mishandled, two-out, infield pop up opened the door for Salisbury who then parlayed three hits, a walk and two more errors into an insurmountable lead before ending the action with one more tally during the next frame.

Ranked fifth in the state in the latest Class Two baseball polls, the Lewis and Clark Conference champions banged out 10 hits as Gavin Binder, Austin Cravens, Caleb Sturm and Hayden Ramsey had two base knocks apiece. Binder scored a total of four times while Sturm drove in four runs and Cravens knocked home three. The big blows of the contest were a two-run double by Cravens in the third and later a bases-clearing two-bagger from Sturm in the fourth.

Westran used three pitchers as Hampton Summers surrendered six runs in nearly four innings of work before reliever Gage Boeger allowed the final four tallies. Austin Cravens fired all five frames for the Panthers, giving up the one run on three hits while striking out five. Ending the year at 12-9, Westran scored their marker on three consecutive infield hits as Jason Wolgemuth had the lone RBI, knocking home Jackson Link for the only Hornet tally.

In the second semifinal game, Fayette put two runs on the board in the bottom of the first, thanks to three walks and four wild pitches given up by Marceline’s starting hurler, Trace Huber. Then in the third, a free pass to the Falcons’ Thad Quint, an RBI double by Payton Oeth and later a run scoring ground out courtesy of Ethan Bean made it 4-0 which wrapped up the scoring for Fayette. The Falcons won despite getting out-hit by Marceline, six to three. Oeth doubled, scored two runs and drove in another for the winners while Thad Quint also scored twice.

Marceline’s single tally came in the top of the fifth thanks to Weston Molloy’s base knock and then an RBI double from Harper Van Zee. Molloy paced the Tiger attack with two hits and a run scored, breaking up the shutout.

Oeth pitched a complete game for a Fayette squad that now stands at 13-8 overall. Oeth fanned seven batters and walked one while scattering those half-dozen hits. Wrapping up the campaign at 12-9 for their winningest season ever, Marceline’s Trace Huber took the loss, firing three innings and allowing all four runs on three hits in addition to walking six. Cody Rogers came on to hurl three innings of relief, giving up no runs on no hits as he struck out six for the Tigers, who were earlier this spring crowned champions of the Grand River East Conference.