For the second night in a row, luck was on the Franklin-Simpson baseball team’s side.

Kaleb Justice’s fly ball to right field nearly went out for a game-tying homer, but was caught on the wall for the final out by Rylan Thomas to give Franklin-Simpson a 7-4 win over Logan County in the championship game of the Region 4 Tournament on Wednesday at Western Kentucky University’s Nick Denes Field.

The Wildcats rallied from an early deficit, but had to survive a seventh-inning rally from the Cougars to capture the program’s first region title since 2000.

Justice’s near homer was similar to Tuesday’s 3-2 semifinal win over Warren East, when Davion Downey’s potential go-ahead homer was just foul – allowing Franklin-Simpson to hang on and get to Wednesday’s title game.

“We had a couple of close calls, which a lot of teams do in these things,” Franklin coach Kyle Gammons said. “You’ve got to have a little luck to advance. I was really glad that Lady Luck was on our side during this tournament.”

Logan County (24-11) beat Franklin-Simpson twice in the regular season, but lost in the District 13 title game last week. It looked like the Cougars were on the way to avenging that loss when Logan County was able to build a 3-0 lead after two.

Justice’s RBI double highlighted a two-run first and the Cougars added an unearned run in the third.

Franklin-Simpson (31-5) was able to stem the tide with a little help from sophomore pitcher Zach Sliger, who entered in relief in the third and retired nine straight after the error that allowed the third run to score.

“I was so glad I was able to get him out on Monday night (in an opening-round win against Glasgow),” Gammons said. “For a sophomore, he has nerves of steel. He stepped in a huge situation for us and was able to throw up zeroes.”

Franklin’s bats came to life in the fourth with a three-run rally that tied the game.

Jacob Curtis trimmed the deficit to 3-2 with a two-run homer to left that bounced off the top of the wall and onto Avenue of Champions.

“I really didn’t expect it,” Curtis said. “I just thought it would be a deep fly ball, but as it went I just saw it go and bounce off the wall at the top and it’s a great feeling.”

Jordan Jones followed with a triple, scoring on a sacrifice fly by Hunter Janes.

“Things didn’t start off the way we wanted, but we kept on fighting because we knew we could beat them,” Janes said. “There were four innings left and I was like, ‘We are going to score. This dude isn’t going to shut us out.’ We just had to stop them when they were hitting and make plays on defense because we knew the bats would come around eventually, and they did.”

Janes gave Franklin-Simpson the lead in the top of the sixth with an RBI double. Dawson Gardner followed with an RBI single to make the score 5-3.

One inning later, Curtis stepped to the plate with runners at second and third and two outs. Logan County coach Ethan Meguiar elected to pitch to Curtis, who roped a two-run double into the gap in left-center.

“The guy on deck had hurt us just the same,” Meguiar said. “We decided to go get him and he hit the ball in the gap.”

Logan County nearly mounted a comeback in the bottom of the seventh. Singles by Jack Wright and Austin Rayno put two runners on with one out.

Sliger got Dylan Penick to ground out for the second out. Jackson Campbell hit a pop up behind second for what appeared to be the final out, but Kyler Pritchett and Alex Gilbert allowed the ball to drop for an RBI single.

The celebration would come one pitch later when Justice flew out to right.

“When Justice hit that ball, I thought it was gone,” Sliger said. “There was a bit of relief. I’m just glad he caught it.”

Sliger earned the win in relief of Ryan Dorris, allowing one earned run and three hits in five innings of work.

Curtis, Janes and Gardner paced the offense with two hits each.

Austin Rayno and Jackson Campbell had two hits each for Logan County.

“I was proud of our kids, the way they played this week to get to the championship game and give us an opportunity to win a region championship,” Meguiar said. “We were right there. That’s all you can ask. There were a lot of other good teams in this region that didn’t have an opportunity that we had tonight.”

Franklin-Simpson advances to Whitaker Bank/KHSAA state baseball tournament in Lexington at 12:30 p.m. CDT on June 9 to face the Region 6 champion – either DeSales or Pleasure Ridge Park.

FSHS 000 302 2 – 7

LCHS 201 000 1 – 4

WP: Sliger. LP: Penick.{&end}