By Ken Jackson

Sports Writer

Only one county team will still be playing Tuesday in the regional baseball playoffs.

Osceola, the Orange Belt Conference champion?

No, sir.

Harmony, who beat Osceola in the regular season, or Liberty, who tied with Osceola in the OBC standings?

Negative, and nope.

Your playoff team is St. Cloud, winner of five regular-season games.

The third-seeded Bulldogs, recipients of a little good fortune and a lot of gutsy pitching by staff ace Nick Arscott, qualified for Tuesday’s 4A Region 2 quarterfinals with a 3-2, nine-inning win over No. 2 seed Tavares Wednesday at the 4A-6 district tournament at Harmony.

It was the third nine-inning game in a row for the Bulldogs (7-15), who beat Oak Ridge on Tuesday by the same score.

St. Cloud catcher Kyle LaPlant took a 3-2, two-out pitch off his batting helmet in the top of the ninth to bring in the winning run, and pitcher Edgar Velez, who came on in the eighth, made it stand up.

For the first time in his 11-year career, Bulldogs Coach Jim Moran will take a team to regionals.

“I told these guys, ‘Believe in what we do, what we’ve preached all year, and we’ll be standing here (on Friday in the district championship),’” he said. “I told Nicky that if he gave us a game, we’d move on.”

Arscott, who struck out six in seven innings, admitted that it was an ugly win.

“Ugly never looked so good,” he said. “My adrenaline really kicked in in the third. The whole team battled to stay in the game.”

St. Cloud trailed Tavares 1-0 in the third inning when a little lightning struck. With Dylan Myers on first and Alessio Pena on second, C.J. Anderson hit a ground ball to third that was thrown wide of second base, then overrun in right field. Both runners scored on the play.

Tavares tied the score at 2 in the bottom of the fourth, and it stayed that way until the ninth inning.

Anderson and Arscott led off with singles. Will Wager and Jeremy Karshner followed with a pair of fielder’s choices, putting runners at first and second with two outs.

J.P. Delvalle followed with a tapper up the first base line that was mishandled by Tavares reliever Neil Bitting, loading the bases for LaPlant to, literally, use his head to first work out of a 1-2 hole, then score the winning run in a way that he called unconventional.

“I was looking for a hit, it would score two. But I was glad that I just got it done,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking anything when I got hit, I was just excited.”

Jordan Bitting led off the bottom of the ninth with a single off Velez, who then got a strikeout and a groundout. With two outs and Jordan Bitting on third, St. Cloud’s Karshner made a deft backhand stab of C.J. Mulholland’s grounder to third to end the game and begin the Bulldog celebration.

The Bulldogs played top-seeded Eustis for the title Friday. The Panthers (16-9) led Harmony (16-10), 3-0, after two innings, but the Longhorns tied the score before falling, 5-4, in nine innings.

Harmony’s Tyler Lesch and Will Tilford hit back-to-back doubles to cut the lead to 3-1 in the fourth. Down 4-1 in the sixth, Ryan Brohlman’s two-run double made it 4-3, then the Longhorns tied it in the seventh.

Mikel Hall led off with a walk, advanced when Alex Gonzalez reached on an error, then came home on George Chavarria’s single. With one out, Lesch was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Then came the moment when the Longhorns ran out of luck, or found that all theirs was bad.

Will Tilford lifted a fly ball to center field. Gonzalez tagged from third and raced home, but Eustis’ Markeith Curry uncorked a dart to the plate and threw him out by the closest of margins.

In the top of the ninth, with Chavarria on third, Lesch’s hot ground ball to the right of second base was stabbed by a diving Mitch Okey, who threw out Lesch from his knees. Okey then led off the bottom of the ninth with walk-off home run to left.

“The kids played hard and I’m proud of them,” Harmony Coach Mike Fields said. “Those two plays, how many times are you going to get beat by both of them? They did all I asked of them, tonight and all season. I’m still proud of what they’ve done with all the kids have been through, with some of our pitchers down.”

Friday night’s winner will host the Region 2 opener Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Liberty was one bad inning away from the 5A-5 district championship game, falling to Winter Haven, 5-1, in Wednesday’s semifinal at Charger field.

Landon Diaz tripled for the second time in the third inning and scored on a passed ball that gave the Chargers a 1-0 lead over the top-seeded Blue Devils.

But, in the bottom of the third, Tray Mancini’s two-out single drove in the tying run and Corey Mizelle’s triple drove in two more to make it 3-1. Levi Borders and Nate Cruz followed with RBI hits to give Winter Haven a 5-1 lead that was secure in the hands of pitcher Colin Richardson, who allowed only one Chargers’ hit over the last four innings.

Liberty’s Jose Calderin,  in relief of starter Timothy Tapia, didn’t allow a hit in 3 1/3 innings. Diaz helped by making a pair of catches against the left field fence.

The Chargers, 15-9, finished their season after beating Osceola, 4-2, for the first time ever in the quarterfinal round Monday.

“We lost to a well-coached and very talented team. Our kids competed to the end,” Chargers Coach Scott Birchler said. “They have worked hard since day one of the program and it is great to see them experience the early stages of success on their way out. The returners have their work cut out to continue the growth and will learn from this experience.”

Winter Haven, 18-6, beat Lake Wales, 5-1, for the district championship Thursday.

Rick Pedone contributed to this story.