The South Laurel Cardinals are headed back to Applebees Park in Lexington after knocking off Estill County 7-0 in a game that was not indicitive of the score.

Both teams threw their aces (Drew Freeman for Estill County and Chris Adams for South Laurel). And both pitchers lived up to the title. The Cardinals also showed some great defense, especially at third by Matthew Gilbert who made two diving stops early in the game.

It was scoreless through the first 6 innings of play. South Laurel finally dented the plate with two outs in the top of the 7th. Ricky Bowling hit a grounder to third that took a funny hop and bounced into leftfield. That opened the floodgates. The Cardinals would score 6 more runs before recording their third out, giving South a 7-0 lead.

Estill County couldn't put anything across in the bottom half of the inning as the Engineers saw their hopes of heading to Applebees Park dashed for the second straight season.

It is South Laurel's second trip in 4 seasons to the State Tournament in Lexington.