MARTINSBURG – After an eight-team bracket was pared down to four in Monday’s quarterfinals, the semifinal round of the 2019 Battle at the Burg saw teams from Jefferson and South Berkeley claim spots in the tournament finals.

Although the initial game of the evening might have appeared to be an even matchup, the first semifinal saw Jefferson Gold surge past its counterpart Jefferson Maroon to a decisive 11-3 victory.

Gold scored four runs in the bottom of the first and didn’t look back, quickly erasing an early 2-0 Maroon lead. Gold scored runs on an error and a wild pitch, before hustling two runs home on a groundout by right fielder Colt Stephenson.

From there, Gold’s pitching asserted its will on the game. After allowing a pair of runs in the first, Gold pitcher Andy Roberts didn’t allow another score in his four and two-thirds innings, striking out eight along the way.

In the fifth, Gold put the game away for good. After reliever Aaron Kish started his outing by striking out five of the first six batters he faced, Gold finally managed to get the bats going, plating six in the inning.

After a pair of walks to start the frame, shortstop Tio Garza smacked a two-run double to make it 7-2. Two batters later, first baseman Brady Mathias laced an RBI double of his own to the right-center field wall, and Gold followed by plating three runs on wild pitches and an RBI single by center fielder Colt Dunkin before the inning was out.

Reliever Owen Utterback, who entered after Roberts hit the 75-pitch limit, finished the game by recording all four of his outs by strikeout to secure his Gold team a place in the finals.

After Jefferson Gold rolled to its victory, the second game of the night, which featured South Berkeley facing off with Brunswick, went a completely different direction: a razor-thin pitcher’s duel that went down to the wire.

South Berkeley pitcher Marshall Burch went toe-to-toe with the Brunswick combination of Jacob Marker and Jared Ricketts, as South Berkeley needed some late heroics to secure its place in the Battle at the Burg finals.

Brunswick took an early second-inning lead after Marker found his way aboard due to an error, moved to third on two wild pitches and scored on a groundout by Sean Finn.

But in the fourth, South Berkeley took advantage of some Brunswick defensive miscues to score two of its own, punctuated by an RBI single from Burch. South Berkeley had a 2-1 lead, but it could have been more: reliever Ricketts struck out the last two batters to strand Burch at third, and struck out the side in the fifth to leave runners at second and third.

In the bottom of the fifth, Brunswick led off with back-to-back hits by Wyatt Hoffman and Matt Johnson, setting up the game-tying run on a Tim Gibson groundout. After Ricketts and Burch dusted their respective opposition in the sixth, the night’s second semifinal became the first game of this year’s Battle of the Burg to go into extra innings.

The order of the game was turned completely on its head in the eighth inning, after Ricketts hit his pitch limit after striking out nine in a brilliant relief appearance. With Ricketts out of the way, South Berkeley erupted for six runs in the inning, while Burch held Brunswick down in the bottom of the eighth inning to emerge triumphant with an eight-inning complete game victory.

Jefferson Gold and South Berkeley will face off in the Battle at the Burg finals tonight at 6 p.m. at Oatesdale Park in Martinsburg.