Mac Ausbrooks is getting pretty good at this.

The Greenwood senior right fielder delivered his second career walk-off hit in Tuesday’s 5-4 District 14 victory over Warren East at Bowling Green’s Harold J. Stahl Field.

Ausbrooks’ first walk-off experience came last season in a blowout over Warren Central, when his grand slam ended the game on a run-rule score.

The winner against the Raiders didn’t leave the park, but this one was still easily the bigger hit for Ausbrooks as it helped the Gators rally from a three-run deficit to earn the victory and even the three-game series against Warren East at 1-all.

Greenwood (11-5 overall, 4-1 in District 14) entered the bottom of the seventh down 4-2 after the Raiders’ Ryan Hawks’ doubled his team’s lead with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly RBI to dead center field.

Warren East needed three outs to claim the win, but the Gators gave them trouble right away in the bottom of the seventh. Ethan Gregory led off with a single to left to chase Raiders reliever Austin Comer, and Reed Slone was hit by a pitch to put two runners on. One out later, Dell Henk drew a walk to load the bases for Ausbrooks.

Ausbrooks didn’t waste any time, ripping a letter-high first-pitch fastball from East reliever Bo Yoakem into the right-center gap.

“That’s what I look for mostly – first-pitch fastball, chest high or lower,” Ausbrooks said.

The first two runs scored easily on Ausbrooks’ double, but Henk’s trip around the basepaths was a bit more of an adventure.

Henk raced into third at full speed but stumbled when Gators coach Jason Jaggers tried to hold him up. Already a third of the way home, Henk elected to dash for home and beat the throw with a slide into the plate.

“I was actually trying to hold him up because I thought he was dead to the rights at home,” Jaggers said. “He slipped, he saw them throw back door and then he did what he’s supposed to do – just take off and make them make a throw and a catch. He made the right read on that.”

Warren East (6-11, 1-4) got a solid outing from starter Sheldon Martin, who retired nine straight Gators to start the game before allowing Cade Thornton’s leadoff single in the bottom of the fourth.

The Raiders opened the scoring in the top of the first with a two-run single by Nolan Ford. Warren East was threatening again in the top of the third with the bases loaded and just one out, but Greenwood starter Tyler Cook escaped trouble with back-to-back strikeouts.

Cook gave up one more run in the fourth on a bases-loaded walk to Tanner Burckhard that boosted the Raiders’ lead to 3-0.

The Gators got two runs in the top of the fifth on Reed Slone’s run-scoring groundout and an RBI single from Thornton.

The Raiders again loaded the bases in the seventh and scored one run on Hawks’ fly out, but couldn’t push any more runs across.

“That’s kind of what we’ve been doing – we find a way to lose instead of finding a way to win,” Warren East coach Wes Sanford said. “We left 14 guys on base tonight. Sheldon did a heckuva job – he gave us a great chance. (Austin) Comer came in and did a great job.

“That’s on us – that’s on the coaching staff. We’ve got to do a better job.”

Martin and Ford finished with two hits each for the Raiders. Thornton and Ausbrooks had two hits each for Greenwood.

The Raiders will host the Gators again Wednesday in the final game of the series starting at 5:30 p.m.

Warren East 200 100 1 – 4 8 0

Greenwood 000 020 3 – 5 9 4

WP — John Morrison. LP — Bo Yoakem.

South Warren 3, Bowling Green 2

Visiting South Warren got a complete-game effort from senior right-hander Tyler Martin as the Spartans evened their District 14 series against Bowling Green with a 3-2 win at Harold J. Stahl Field.

Martin managed to avoid allowing a big inning despite surrendering eight hits and four walks. He struck out seven in the win as South Warren regrouped from Monday’s 4-2 loss to the Purples.

“Yeah, it’s a real big game,” Martin said. “We took that (loss) kind of personal because we want to win the series. We want to get the highest place in the district as possible.”

Mason Day’s RBI single in the top of the second gave the Spartans an early lead, but Bowling Green (12-7, 1-1) answered in the bottom of the frame when Geoffrey Ross hit a shot back up the middle that Martin deflected but couldn’t stop for a single.

South Warren (14-4, 4-1) nearly took the lead again in the third. Dalton Taylor hit a fly ball to center with the bases loaded and one out and appeared to drive in a run. But an appeal to the base resulted in South Warren’s runner at third being called out for leaving the bag too early.

The Purples inched ahead in the third on an Eli Burwash RBI single, but South Warren answered with two in the fourth to take the lead for good. Day came through with an RBI double to score Scotty Miller, then later in the inning a Purples throwing error on a fielder’s choice allowed another run.

Bowling Green got a solid start from Charlie Key, who worked six innings and took the loss. Key allowed six hits and four walks while striking out five.

“I thought he gave us a chance to win,” Purples coach Nathan Isenberg said of Key. “The tale of the game was the errors we made on defense and our non-competitive at-bats. It’s kind of uncharacteristic of us, but we’ve got to fix that.”

South Warren will host Bowling Green on Wednesday at 6 p.m. to wrap up the three-game series.

South Warren 010 200 0 – 3 6 0

Bowling Green 011 000 0 – 2 8 3

WP — Tyler Martin. LP — Charlie Key.{&end}