With the season hanging in the balance in two critical postseason games, Platte County’s baseball team has turned to Zach Brown. Both times, Brown has delivered immensely on home turf.
Brown’s latest outing on May 30 helped the Pirates earn a Class 5 state semifinal berth, silencing a high-scoring Summit Christian team with 6.1 scoreless innings on the mound. Platte County won Game 1 by a score of 7-4 on May 29 before losing Game 2 the next morning by a score of 16-4, then bouncing back shortly after to clinch the series with a 5-0 win in Game 3.
Zach Brown gave up no runs across 7.2 innings of work in the quarterfinal series, earning the series-deciding win on May 30 in Game 3.
The victory sealed Platte County’s return to the 76th MSHSAA Baseball Championships, slated for June 5-6 at Ozark Mountain Sports Complex in Ozark, Missouri.
Brown started Game 3 of the quarterfinal series after the Pirates split the first two games. After picking up the win the previous week in the district championship, Brown escalated his performance even more by shutting out the highest-scoring team in all of Class 5.
“Zach Brown is an elite competitor and deserves way more recognition than he gets,” Platte County head coach John Sipes said. “He should be going to college to pitch at the next level.
After we pulled him (due to pitch count), I gave him a big sweaty hug and told him that I just witnessed the guttiest pitching performance that I have ever seen and that I love him!”
It was a performance that would have made Curt Schilling’s bloody sock proud. Not only did Brown pitch a gem in Game 3, but he also came up big in Game 1 less than 24 hours earlier.
With Platte County leading 6-4 in Game 1, Brown came on in relief with one out and the tying run at the plate. Brown got the Pirates out of trouble with a groundout and a strikeout in the fifth before recording the first two outs in the sixth, which was eventually finished off by Lucas Dillingham.
Platte County was fully prepared for the quarterfinal challenge, which included facing highly-touted Summit Christian prospects Brooks Zumwalt, a senior committed to play DI baseball next year at Pittsburg, and Keelan Zumwalt, the state’s No. 1 recruit in the class of 2028.
“We knew that their top 3-4 hitters were good and that if we could keep the bases clean for the Zumwalts, we would have a great chance of winning, which is what we did in games 1 and 3,”
Sipes said. “We knew it was going to be a battle to get out of there in just two games. Anytime you are going against not just one but two potential high school draft picks, you know you have your hands full.”
While Brooks Zumwalt played a major part in forcing a third game, driving in seven runs off three homers in Game 2, Platte County had the Zumwalts covered well in Games 1 and 2. The Zumwalt brothers combined to hit 0-for-7 in Game 1 and 1-for-5 in Game 3.
Brennan McLaughlin hit two home runs and seven RBIs, going 3-for-6 in the quarterfinals with five walks.
On Platte County’s offensive end, Brennan McLaughlin made the most of his chances at the plate. McLaughlin, who picked up the win in Game 1, went 3-for-6 at the plate in the series with two homers, including a go-ahead grand slam in Game 1 and a three-run shot in Game 2.
“He is not the 5A player of the year for nothing,” Sipes said. “The kid is a talent that only comes around once every decade or more. His ability to come up with the big hit, play or pitch when the team needs him is uncanny.”
With McLaughlin red-hot in the series, Summit Christian decided not to let his bat decide Game 3. Instead, they intentionally walked him three times.
While that decision worked out for Summit Christian the first two times, it did not work out for them in Platte County’s four-run seventh inning, when McLaughlin’s intentional walk loaded the bases with no outs. Ian Gold followed with a line drive to center, scoring a run, before Nolan Sipes found the gap in left-center field for a two-RBI double to make it 4-0, with another run scoring on a wild pitch.
Platte County moves on to the Class 5 semifinals for a second straight year, hoping to repeat its championship from last year. The Pirates’ semifinal challenge will be against another title-experienced Willard team, who won Class 5 state titles in 2024 and 2021. First pitch for the semifinal is slated for 7 p.m. on Friday, June 5.
A low-scoring game is expected against Willard, who was ranked No. 2 in Class 5 on May 18, where every baserunner is valuable. The winner advances to the state championship, where they will face the winner of Chaminade and St. Dominic on Saturday, June 6, at 7 p.m. The loser plays for third at 4 p.m.
“We are expecting to bring home another Missouri state championship trophy,” Sipes said. “But we know that it is going to be a tough road ahead.”