Staff photo / Dan Hiner The West Branch baseball team gathers around Carter Thrasher, bottom middle, after his walkoff walk in the bottom of the seventh inning against Orange in a Division IV, Northeast 1 sectional final at West Branch High School.

BELOIT — Carter Thrasher knew what was coming. He stepped into the batter’s box with a full count, and the pitch fell outside the zone.

Thrasher flipped his bat, turned toward the dugout and began to celebrate before making his way down the first-base line.

The junior drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the seventh inning, securing the West Branch baseball team a 1-0 win over Orange in a Division IV, Northeast 1 sectional final on Thursday in Beloit.

“That last at-bat, I struggled on that slider … both of them. I was way ahead on that first one, the second one kinda came at me,” Thrasher said. “That last one, I knew it was coming. I watched it high, so I just let it go.”

For most of the game, Jeremiah Thomas was doing his best Tanner Bibee impression for the Warriors (12-13). He threw a complete-game shutout and struck out eight while giving up three hits and a pair of walks. He was just waiting on that run support.

Thomas was locked in a battle of southpaws, as Orange junior Benjamin Carpenter also went the distance in a loss.

Thomas had to work out of some trouble in the later innings, however.

Orange’s Samuel Melvey reached on an infield single in the top of the third. Caleb Panteck was then hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second with one out. Thomas, though, got back-to-back flyouts to right field to escape the inning.

Orange had another chance in the fourth when Danny Neal beat out an infield single and advanced to second on a throwing error on a back-pick attempt. But Thomas struck out Russell Melvey to end the frame.

The Lions had runners on second with two outs in the fifth and sixth innings, but Thomas kept the game scoreless. He also had an efficient seventh inning to give his teammates an opportunity to walk it off.

“He had a little bit of trouble with his fastball, but his slider was great,” West Branch head coach Ryan Wolf said of Thomas’ outing. “We were able to go to that when we needed to, and it’s a really good pitch when it’s on. That was the difference.

“They never had a runner on third. Runners on first and second, we felt he could get that strikeout or get weak contact. When it was a situation when we needed a big play, we got it.”

In the seventh, Grady Close beat out a leadoff bunt single, and Carson Wike and Nick Scofinsky put him in scoring position after reaching on back-to-back errors on bunt attempts.

With the bases loaded and nobody out, Thrasher came to the plate and forced home the only run of the game on his bases-loaded walk.

“Three bunts before (Thrasher’s walk). We’d been hitting the ball hard, they’d been playing great defense,” Wolf said. “We always talk about you win the game in the first 60 feet, and that was the factor here. Three times we got the ball in the first 60 feet. They don’t field it, they don’t get an out, and it puts themselves in a situation where they have no room for error. A 3-2 pitch, walk it off. It’s pretty fun.”

The Warriors will face third-seeded Norton in the district semifinals on Tuesday at 5 p.m.

After seeing his players pull out a victory in the first tournament game, Wolf is confident that his team is prepared to make a postseason push if faced with challenges again.

“With that adversity and that pressure, it’s a really good thing for us knowing, ‘Hey, our backs are against the wall, and any little play here or there or a missed pitch, they could take the lead,'” Wolf said. “We weren’t doing much offensively, so we manufactured something. Now we have the confidence that if it’s a tight ballgame or a low-scoring ballgame, we can be successful.”