Cooling off was never a concern. At least not for this Purples team.

When Bowling Green turned a page midway through the season, its bats found a rhythm and never jumped out of it all the way through the district and region tournaments.

Logan County was the first victim. Cumberland County tried. Russell County simply didn’t have a chance.

By that point, the Bowling Green machine was rolling, and the Purples don’t plan on letting off the throttle on their way back to Lexington.

The Purples pounded Russell County 14-0 to win the Region 4 championship Thursday night.

“It feels amazing,” senior outfielder Will Garske said. “I was here my sophomore year and it was a mission to get back here my senior year and we did it. I can’t be happier.”

The region title is Bowling Green’s second in three seasons. The Purples, who missed out on the region tournament last season, will play the Region 11 champion in the first round of the state tournament on June 8 at 7:30 p.m. CDT at Whitaker Bank Ballpark in Lexington.

“(The seniors) had to follow two big classes and for them to do this when no one, not even people on our own side didn’t think we could do it,” Purples coach Matt Myers said. “For them to do it and the way we did it this week, I’m just so happy for them.”

Bowling Green (21-11) rolled through the tournament with ease, outscoring opponents 35-2 and using just three pitchers along the way.

Sophomore Charlie Key earned the win Thursday in five innings and allowed just four hits in the shutout.

By comparison, Bowling Green’s batters forced Logan County, Cumberland County and Russell County to use a combined 12 pitchers against the Purples’ hot bats. The Lakers (26-8) went through seven pitchers and scattered 10 hits while issuing eight walks.

“I knew we could hit,” Myers said. “I’ve said it for a while, we could hit. I think we made a statement when we beat Warren East with Ryan (Hawks) on the mound. There’s a lot of people that were like, ‘Uh oh.’ That’s a good arm. For us to do it without (Jackson) Haga. Everyone counted us out without Haga.

“Sometimes when you have a loss, you never know how good you can be. That’s why we tried to push the limits with the schedule and put them in failure situations and look how they responded.”

Bowling Green went scoreless in the first inning, then began the rout in a game delayed nearly two hours due to inclement weather. Evan Spader reached on a bunt and scored on a Jeffrey Ross triple deep to left field. Ross scored on a fielder’s choice to put Bowling Green up 2-0 after two against Lakers starting pitcher Jackson Best.

Best also pitched three scoreless innings in the start against Monroe County to open the region tournament. Against Bowling Green, he lasted just 2 1/3 innings after surrendering a two-run double to Trevor Dennis that put the Lakers in a 4-0 hole.

“You know going in that they were going to be tough,” Russell County coach David Rexroat said. “We knew we had to have great pitching performances and needed to hit some spots. We didn’t have an answer on the mound there. They flat out hit the baseball and they ran the bases well and we just didn’t have an answer for that.”

Russell County kept expending its bullpen to try and stop the bleeding, but Bowling Green kept rolling.

Ross showed up again by lifting another triple into center field to score two more and stretch the lead to 6-0.

“Toward the end of the year, we started hitting well,” said Ross, whose two doubles turned in three RBIs. “After the Logan County win, we knew we could beat any team out there.”

Russell County went through its fifth pitcher by the fourth inning when the Purples poured on seven more runs off just three hits.

Joe Howard led the Purples with three hits and finished the region tournament 8-for-11 at the plate.

“Putting up crooked numbers on the board gave our pitchers confidence to go out there and throw strikes and we did just what we had to do in the box and won,” Garske said.

Bowling Green scored double-digit runs in 11 games since it lost three out of four games during a mid-April stretch. The second half of the year featured an eight-game win streak and a sprinkle of adversity in a 2-1 loss to South Warren in the District 14 championship game.

Bowling Green responded by pounding Logan County with 10 hits in a 9-0 first-round win Monday, a 13-hit night in a five-inning win over Cumberland County in the semis, then the field day against the Lakers, who entered Thursday with the best record among Region 4 teams.

“We went through some struggles and it was not given to us,” Garske said. “We had a really hard schedule and we worked through it and we stayed together and we never gave up and now I’ve got the trophy in my hand.”

BGHS 024 71 – 14 10 0

RCHS 000 00 – 0 4 2

WP: Key. LP: Best.{&end}