B U T L E R

OXFORD — The hardest part about baseball is that it doesn’t always reward what you deserve. Sometimes you square up pitches and find gloves. Sometimes you make the right play and still watch the inning continue. And sometimes you run into a team like Hamilton Badin. For six innings Thursday afternoon at McKie Field, Butler stood toe-to-toe with one of Ohio’s perennial baseball powers. The Aviators did exactly what they needed to do early, preventing the Rams from landing the

OXFORD — One of the reasons Butler is still playing baseball in June is because the Aviators have never asked the same player to carry them twice. Over the course of the spring, different names have surfaced at different moments. A dominant pitching performance one day. A clutch hit the next. A defensive play when one was needed most. Tuesday afternoon at Miami University's McKie Field, Jackson Schilling happened to be the player in the spotlight. But he wasn't alone. Schilli

VANDALIA — By the time June arrives, records and standings become little more than numbers on a page. The wins that came easy in April don’t matter. The polls and the rankings don’t matter. What matters now is finding a way to win seven more innings. And that’s exactly what brings Butler and Kenton Ridge to Miami University this week on Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 pm. On paper, the matchup appears straightforward enough. Butler arrives at 24-5 after claiming a district champion

CINCINNATI — The longer this season has gone, the harder it has become to tell where confidence ends and expectation begins. Maybe that's what happens when a baseball team spends spring stacking wins, breaking records, and carrying itself with the quiet assurance that comes from knowing exactly who it is. Whatever the reason, Butler looked Friday like a team that had arrived at the district championship game with no intention of making it dramatic. Not against La Salle. Not w