It worked Sunday afternoon.
Spears capped off West Side’s 13-4 victory over Boardman with a late two-run homer in the Ohio Little League state tournament at Boardman’s Field of Dreams.
“I just stepped in the box and thought, ‘Go yard,’” said Spears, who went 2-for-2 with three runs and three RBIs. “As soon as it hit the bat, I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s gone.’
“I’ve never had that kind of feeling before like that, so it was pretty special.”
West Side advances to play New Albany, which beat Bellevue 11-1, on Monday at 2 p.m. in Boardman.
West Side had eight batters log at least a base hit and a run on Sunday.
“We were just all hitting,” Spears said.
Teegan Lay went 3-for-3 with three runs for West Side, while Jordan Malloy (2-for-4, run), TJ Madden (2-for-3, two RBIs), Lennox Brown (2-for-3, run, RBI) and Oakley Turner (1-for-3, two RBIs) also contributed offensively.
“This is different for me,” Lay said. “I play travel ball, and this is my first year of playing on this team. This is just a lot of fun.
“This is awesome. Everybody mainly has good attitudes, and we all work together as a team. We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing.”
West Side starter Cash Jones went 2 1/3 innings, giving up two runs on six hits with one strikeout. Anthony Saurber and Bobby Frazier came in on relief. Saurber pitched two innings of no-hit ball with two strikeouts.
Madden smacked a two-RBI double that scored Preston Baker and Saurber to put West Side up 2-0 in the top of the first.
Turner’s two-RBI single brought home Boone Treadway and Lay to give West Side a 4-0 lead in the top of the second. Later in the inning, Madden hit a ground ball to short that allowed Turner to score — which put West Side up 5-0.
“Oakley came up big with bases loaded and two outs — gets a ball down the right field line," West Side manager Ken Coomer said. “It’s not just coming from one part in the order or one person. It’s coming from everybody.”
Boardman grabbed a run in the bottom of the second and added a solo home run in the bottom of the third to cut the West Side lead to 5-2.
Brown laid down a bunt single that scored Jonathan Lineback to give West Side a 6-2 advantage in the top of the fourth. Spears singled home Lay, and then Spears came around to score on a wild pitch to make it 8-2.
Malloy and Baker both scored on wild pitches to up West Side’s lead to 10-3 in the top of the fifth.
“Once we got a couple runs on those passed balls, I thought we were in good shape,” Coomer said.
Lay crossed the plate on a wild pitch in the top of the sixth, and Spears crushed his two-run homer to round out the West Side scoring.
Boardman, which collected 10 total hits, grabbed two more runs in the final inning before West Side closed it out.
“Those guys swing the bat well,” Coomer said. “We’re trying to do our pitcher right without blowing a game, either. It seemed like everything worked out pretty well today.”
The state tournament winner advances to the Great Lakes Regional, which takes place Aug. 2-6 in Whitestown, Indiana.
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