Baseball stumbles on Senior Day

The Oran High School baseball team saw its record slip under .500 with its second consecutive lose to end the regular season 8-9.  Yesterday, they fell to Charleston 11-10 on Senior Day.

The Eagles got behind by two in the top of the first.  The BlueJays used a lead-off error and a home run off of starter Todd Priggel.

Oran cut the deficit in half during the bottom of the frame.  Priggel launched a drive over the right-field fence with one out.  They would get a two-out single from Kaden Hargrove and back to back walks to Kole Simms and Dawson Menz but left the bases loaded. 

That would be a reoccurring theme throughout the game as the Eagles left 13 on base.

Both teams would go down in order in the second, but Charleston would add to its lead in the third.  They used a leadoff hit batter, a single and a home run to take a 5-1 lead.

Oran, on the other hand, would not score again until the bottom of the fifth. By that time they were down 10-1 and on the verge of getting mercy-ruled.

In the meantime, Connor Kern came in relief to start the fourth.  He made it out of that inning unscathed, but the fifth was another story.  Charleston used three walks, two singles and a couple of errors to score five runs, only one of which was earned, to extend the lead.

Ty Johnson opened the home-half, with a line drive home run to left. Kaden Hargrove walked and Dane Shands entered as a pinch runner.  With two outs, Seth Cauble singled and Luke Patterson was hit by a pitch to load the bags.  All three were stranded.

Kern worked around a leadoff single in the top of the sixth.

The Eagles put up a "snowman" in the bottom of the inning to tie the game at 10.  They used three hits, three walks, two hit batters and two errors.  Jacob Shoemaker had a double and Dane Shands had a two-run triple in the frame.  The tying run crossed on Priggel's one-out sacrifice fly.  With two runners still on base and a two-out walk, Oran left three on base again.

Charleston reclaimed the lead in the seventh in the strangest of ways. 

After a leadoff walk, a sac bunt, a groundout, the runner was at third with two down.  Kern was ahead on the count 1-2 to the ninth-place batter.  He was in the set position when he was stung by a wasp causing him to balk and allow the run to score.

The Eagles went down in order to end the game.

Kern (0-1-1), took the loss in relief, going four innings. He allowed six runs, but only two were earned, on four hits, four walks while striking out two.  Priggel went the first three.  He allowed five runs, four earned, struck out six and did not walk a batter.

Johnson had three hits and drove in a pair.  Priggel and Shands, each had two RBI. Shoemaker added two hits.

Coach Joe Bickings said, "What a game of ups and downs that was.  Down 10-2 and come back and tie it at 10-10 in the sixth only to lose the lead with two outs on a balk when Connor got stung by a bug.  When it rains it pours I guess.  Not to take any credit away from Charleston and Coach Minner because they beat us and took advantage of our miscues but I felt like we beat ourselves.  We made too many errors in big spots to give ourselves a chance to win and we didn’t hit the ball early on in the game and take advantage of the walks they gave us.  We have to get innings going early and get our leadoff guy on.  Charleston did that 6 of the 7 innings yesterday and they are able to steal or bunt runners over.  We only go the leadoff guy on once yesterday and that was the inning we scored 8 runs.  The positive was that we didn’t give up and battled back but we can’t wait until the 6th inning to get something going after you are already down 10-2."

Oran is now 8-9 and will play on Monday in Bell City at 2 pm.  They will face the winner of Zalma and Oak Ridge who will play Friday at noon.