Salina ? Sometimes it is the smallest of things, which result in the biggest of outcomes.

In baseball terms nothing seems as small, but means so much as hustle. And nowhere was this idea more apparent than when Eudora’s No. 9-hitter, Matthew Abel, was up to bat.

In a scoreless, as well as hitless, game through two innings the Cardinal sophomore beat out a routine grounder, which would have been the third out of the inning. Instead, Abel’s hustle launched a five-run third that propelled the No. 1-seeded Cardinals to a 6-2 victory over No. 8-seed Wellington in the first round of the 4A state baseball tournament.

“After I hit it, I don’t really watch where it goes,” Abel said. “I just hustle down the line and try and beat everything out no matter where it’s hit.”

The hustle produced the first baserunner of the game and set the stage for the big inning.

The Cardinals’ kept things going as Abel advanced to third on a throwing error, committed on a Miles Cleveland grounder, and then came around to score on brother Mark’s two-out single.

Eudora High School sophomore Kelson Boyer deliver. He pitched the Cardinals past Wellington, 6-2, on Friday in a first-round Class 4A state baseball game in Salina.

The inning was capped by senior Kyle Brouhard’s two-run double down the right field line, giving Eudora a 5-0 lead.

“Kyle just has a knack when there’s somebody on base that he’s going to get them in,” Eudora coach Dirk Kinney said. “And Matthew’s hustle was huge, we got five runs out of that with two outs.

“When we get on base we make things happen. As soon as we get on we’re trying to get things done out there and it’s worked for us.”

The two-out third-inning barrage proved plenty for starter Kelson Boyer. The sophomore threw six scoreless innings, while managing to diffuse the Crusaders’ only real threat to get back in the game in the fifth by coaxing a weak ground ball out of Wellington’s Tyler Ybarra to leave the bases loaded.

The Cardinals added a run in the sixth, courtesy of a well executed hit-and-run by third baseman Chad Krutz and Matthew Abel’s second hit of the game, an RBI single.

Wellington mounted a late charge in the seventh with a pair of runs, but a double play ended the contest (which was delayed three hours by rain), giving Eudora its first-ever victory in state tournament competition.

“We have two games left, so we still have business to take care of,” Matthew Abel said. “We’ll dwell on this for a little bit and then get ready for tomorrow.”

Eudora High now advances to today’s state 4A semifinal versus fifth-seed Topeka-Hayden at 10 a.m.