There is something remarkably pure and perfect about the sound of cleats--and nothing else--in a dugout following a game, although calling such a painful loss a “game” seems almost unfair to the young men who truly battled for victory.

The meeting of athletic shoe and concrete got no opposition from voices as the Llano baseball Jackets reflected for the first time--of many times to come--on a 10-9 anguish at Bandera, April 22. The Bulldogs’ three-run seventh inning cost the visitors a share of the 25-3A district championship.

“It’s tough to take,” head coach Chad Krempin said in a halting delivery. Tough, indeed, for he had seen his upstart, “on-the- young-side nine” rally from being two games behind with four to play to forcing the title issue in this district-ending drama.

He had also seen his Jackets lead 7-0 and 8-3 before Bandera saved its best for last and took charge in an intense duel for the crown.

Unless you were Cody Fietz’s batting helmet, things started well-enough. Ethan Lutz’s first two pitches hit Trey Brooks and Fietz. Lutz, maybe the best pitcher in Region IV, can throw hard, and the wicked offering Cody received slammed into his helmet--thanks for that innovation. The ball bounced 20 feet in the air. Fietz and Brooks were not hurt.

One out later, Travis Ramos hurt Lutz. His smash traveled 380 feet--against a slight breeze--over the centerfield fence. Llano, which had beaten Bandera, 9-2, on April 11, was up 3-0; The ‘Dogs’ seven district wins had all been shutouts!

Reagan Friedrich and Lance Dickey got singles in the third inning, and Llano took advantage of two walks and an error. Dustin Jordan, who had hit a monster home run at Bulldog Field on the 11th, drove in two runs with a base hit. Blue and White Bandera was Black and Blue after the Black and Orange had constructed a 7-0 lead through two and a half innings.

“We didn’t quit; we were scared, though,” Bulldog head coach Richard Vossen said after the postgame celebration. “I thought if we didn’t get it done in the third it wouldn’t happen. We challenged the kids.”

They accepted the challenge and began their comeback with three runs. Brandon Jennings got two teammates to the plate with a bullet down the line in left.

Jackets’ senior, Nathan Dudley, who has spent about as much time in Bandera as he has in history class, had gotten out of a bases-loaded jam in the first, and he contributed a tough two-and-two-thirds on the mound before he gave the ball to freshman Dallas Redden.

“Our pitchers walked too many guys,” Krempin lamented. There were 10 walks and one hit-batsman. “Also, we had a chance to run-rule them, but we got just one hit from the third through the sixth innings. I’m really not blaming them, because I believe in these guys, but the mood, of course, was: ‘we’re going to win.’”

Redden pitched a solid fourth frame, but ten men batted in the fifth. Four hits and four walks helped produce four runs for Bandera. Llano, which had led, 8-3, before this stanza was now in front, 8-7.

“We’ve had so many big leads this year,” Vossen ventured, “it was hard to know if we could handle this kind of deficit; we were actually thrown into shock. I’m glad to know we had it in us to overcome adversity.”

Lance Dickey, like Dudley, probably knows the way to Bandera as well as he knows the way to the Lantex theater. After all the football, basketball and baseball games he has played in that town for most of the decade, he took his last-ever-swing-for-glory in the seventh inning.

It was a mammoth, 390-foot rocket launch over the fence in left centerfield. The Jackets had one precious insurance run and a 9-7 lead--the home team had three outs to make one more comeback.

Logan Davis was a gutty force on the hill. He hadn't pitched much this season, but he got the last out in the fifth and retired the ‘Dogs in the sixth. Davis struck out Cisco Ruiz to open the seventh.

Mitchell Hempstead singled, and the count was three-and-two on Noah Robison. Llano was four strikes away from the co-championship. The full-count pitch, though, was a ball, and Lutz made up for his surprisingly poor performance on the mound with a whistling line drive to the corner in left.

The tying runs scored easily on the double. A ground out moved courtesy-runner Zac McClain to third, and he raced home on a wild pitch. Bandera’s ascent to the mountain top was complete; it had its first and only lead of the game and, thus, the crowning achievement, 10-9.

“The boys will not get down,” Krempin declared, “as they have to look ahead to Luling in the opening round of the playoffs.” That’s a best-of-three series, May 2 at 7 p.m., and May 3 at 1 p.m. with a deciding game to follow if necessary. The site is Cedar Park high school.

“I won’t let the kids do anything but put this defeat behind them,” Krempin said in a convincing tone. “You heard it here first: I think we’re going to do real well in the postseason. I think we can do some good things; ou