The Seymour baseball team wasn’t having much luck against New Albany’s ace pitcher, Chase Loesch, through four innings Wednesday night in the Seymour Sectional at American legion Field.

Loesch held the Owls to only one hit to go along with six strike outs and no runs through four innings.

Seymour’s luck changed in the fifth inning, and over the next three innings the Owls scored six runs on six hits and two New Albany errors and won 6-1.

The win puts the Owls (15-7) into today’s semi-finals against Bedford North Lawrence, beginning at 11 a.m.

BNL defeated Jeffersonville 7-3 in the first game Wednesday.

The second game today will match Floyd Central and Jennings County, and the winners will play at 11 a.m. Monday for the championship.

The Bulldogs took a 1-0 lead in the third inning on a walk, fielder’s choice, single and a sacrifice fly.

The opposition actually had the bases loaded with no outs before Braden Richey forced New Albany’s 2-3-4 batters to hit a fly ball to center, he recorded a strike out, and got the next batter to ground out to the shortstop.

Brady Harpe got the Owls’ fifth-inning rally started with a sharp single to right field. Coach Jeremy Richey then had his team play ‘small ball,’ with freshman Braylon Busby laying down a sacrifice bunt.

Aaron Holt followed with another bunt and Loesch fielded the ball and throw it past the first baseman for an error with Harpe scoring on the play.

Mikey Wright doubled into right-center field to drive in to score Holt.

Seymour added a run in the sixth when Sawyer Smith went into pinch-run for Gavin Leavy, who was safe on a fielder’s choice. Smith went to second on Tylan Nicholson’s bunt, advanced to third on a wild and scored on Harpe’s sacrifice fly.

The Owls blew the game open in the seventh with Holt leading off by bunting and reaching first base safely on an error. Wright walked, Jack Pennington singled to drive in Holt, and Wright scored on a wild Bret Perry singled to score Pennington.

Coach Richey said the Owls did a much better job of making contact their second and third times through the lineup.

“After the first time through I thought our bats were a lot better. We talked, ‘now that we’ve seen him, let’s put the ball in play and make things happen.’

“These kids have bought in the last couple weeks with the bunt game and how big of a factor that can be. We messed some stuff up in the bunt game, but we created a lot of stuff, too, but I’m very proud of the adjustments they made from halfway through the season to now with buying into that’s got to be our philosophy.

“We’ve had some games where we haven’t hit very well and it’s been a quiet game, and we’re starting to create some energy for ourselves, and once we get going that game gets better and better, and allows us to run the bases, which I think is still our strength offensively.

“But we’ve got to get guys on base at the right time, and from the fifth inning on we were able to do that.”

The top six batters in the order combined for seven hits with Perry getting two, with Wright, Pennington and Harpe all getting a hit and an RBI.

“They’re figuring it out,” Richey said. “A kid like Braylon Busby, he’s had one or two at bats all year, but the situation comes up where we need to get a bunt down, and we trusted Braylon could do it and he steps in here against a ‘college’ pitcher and gets a bunt down perfectly.”

Richey said Mask Longmeier gave the team a couple of good defensive innings in right field.

Braden Richey pitched the first five innings and held the Bulldogs to one unearned run while striking out seven, walking two and allowing three hits. Leavy had two strike outs, and walked one and didn’t give up any hits in his two innings of the mound.

Coach Richey said, “I’m very proud of both of them. I think Braden is hurt pretty badly. He battled through it, but he’s going to have some issues. He’s really tight right now. He didn’t want to come out, and that’s what we ask for, and he executed really well kept us in the game and allowed us to go through those struggles early and then we were able to get some runs. We felt really confident with Gavin. He did a great job of coming in and throwing strikes.”

Richey and Holt, the Owls’ third baseman, collided while fielding a pop up in the second inning.

Seymour 6, New Albany 1

Seymour hits; 2-Bret Perry, 1-Mikey Wright, Jack Pennington, Gavin Leavy, Tylan Nicholson, Brady Harpe; 2B-Wright; RBIs-Wright, Pennington, Perry, Harpe; runs- 2-Holt, 1-Wright, Pennington, Sawyer Smith

Seymour pitching: Braden Richey 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 7 K, 2 BB; Levy 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 K, 1 W