RIPLEY — Over the game’s first seven batters, Ripley committed three uncharacteristic errors. But that wasn’t enough to lose its grip on another spot in the state tournament.

Landon Meadows went the distance and struck out five with no walks Thursday evening and the Vikings blew the game open with a seven-run third inning as they cruised to a 10-2 victory against Herbert Hoover in the Class AAA Region 3 co-championships at soggy Viking Park.

The win sends defending champion Ripley (21-10) back to the state tournament, set for June 6-13 at Jack Cook Field on the campus of Marshall University in Huntington.

Hoover (22-11) was two outs away from being eliminated on the 10-run rule, but tallied twice in the top of the fifth to cut into a 10-0 deficit and keep the game going.

Ripley began its third-inning uprising with seven straight hits, with RBI knocks from Meadows, Kyler Doss, Cash Clendenin and Eli Phalen. Hoover also had two errors in that surge.

“We jumped out on them 10-to-nothing in the third inning,” said Ripley coach Shane Casto, “and then I thought we got a little bit comfortable. It’s kind of human nature sometimes, but we’ve got to finish teams when we can, going forward, if we get into that situation again.

“It’s not going to be easy from here on out. Every team’s that left is going to be a good team, so we’ve got to get ourselves ready to go over the next couple weeks.”

Meadows was working on a three-hit shutout when Hoover’s Riley Johnson laced a bases-loaded single to score a pair of runs with one out in the fifth to keep hope alive. The Huskies finished with eight hits.

“We got a little unlucky early,” said Huskies coach J.R. Oliver. “We got the hit-it-at-’ems. They’ve got a good ballclub. We knew that. Everybody in the state knows that. They hit the ball well all the way through the lineup and it challenges your pitching.

“They hit some good pitches tonight, and that’s why they’re defending state champions and going back and have a good shot at winning another one.”

Ripley saw seven of its nine starters contribute at least one hit and five drove in runs. Two Vikings runs scored off errors, one on a wild pitch and another when Hoover turned a double play.

Parker Keller, Brady McVay and Phalen (the No. 9 batter) each had two hits for Ripley, which got six extra-base hits among the dozen it struck off Hoover’s Owen Jackson and Collin Flanagan.

Casto thinks his team is just now rounding into form following a regular season full of key injuries. The top two hitters in his lineup – son Bryson Casto (pitcher-

shortstop) and catcher Peyton Keller missed 18 and 11 games, respectively, with injuries.

“Hats off to the guys who filled in,” Shane Casto said. “We used quite a few guys in different spots, moved the lineup around. We used guys all over the field and they competed, they battled. We still won some games and we stayed afloat and stayed positive about the whole thing.

There were games that we lost that we could have possibly won, but we got some guys some valuable experience along the way. Now, to get those guys back and healthy and the rust knocked off them, you can see the chemistry’s back and the things that we were missing at times in the middle of the year.

“Guys who stepped in those spots did a great job but with these guys back – our No. 1 pitcher and shortstop and catcher, two pretty valuable positions – things are clicking right now.”

Hoover, meanwhile, had to play four straight days after suffering an 8-0 loss to Ripley in the second round of double-elimination regional play, leaving the Huskies pitching staff thinned out.

“A little bit,” Oliver said. “We’ve got a deep staff. We rely on throwing strikes and playing defense. Tonight, we didn’t play as clean defensively as we normally do, and that didn’t help things, either. The weather conditions might have played into it a little bit, but you can’t use that as an excuse because both teams played on it.

“We didn’t play our best baseball and we’ve got to play good baseball to beat a team like that. We’ve played teams like this all season long – this is the toughest schedule that I’ve had since I’ve been a coach in 10 years, and these guys won 22 games against that schedule. I told them I was proud of them.

“Our three seniors, they picked their game up this year and led this team. They’re going to be really missed.”

Class AAA Regional

R 307 000 x — 10 12 2

WP: Landon Meadows 7 IP, 0 BB, 5 SO

Ripley (20-12) hitting: Parker Keller 2-4, 3B, 2 Rs; Eli Phalen 2-2, 3B, 2B, 2 RBIs; Kyler Doss 2-3, 3B, RBI; Meadows 1-3, 2B, RBI; Cash Clendenin 1-2, 2B, RBI; Brady McVay 2-3

Note: Ripley advances to state tournament