Blues Battle, Fall In Pair Of Games
Nine games into the season, the Parry McCluer High School baseball team is still trying to find a way to come up with a complete game.
On Tuesday of last week, it was the defense that let down the Fighting Blues in a 19-12 home loss to Pioneer District rival Bath County in Buena Vista. Two days later, the bats went silent again as the Blues were blanked by Grace Christian School 4-0 at the Diamond Club in Stuarts Draft. As a result, PM ended the week with a 1-8 overall record and is 1-3 in the Pioneer District.
“We can’t seem to put it all together right now,” said PM head coach Bryan Loy. “That’s something we’ll keep working on.”
Looking at the statistics against Bath County (3-5 overall 3-1 district), one would be impressed. The Blues scored 12 runs while banging out 11 hits, drew seven walks and swiped nine bases. Then one turns to the defensive side of the ledger and sees a whopping 11 errors that led to 14 unearned runs for the Chargers.
“It seems like if we hit the ball, the defense [lapses],” Loy said. “If we pitch and field well, we can’t hit the ball. We’ll go back to the fun- damentals, trying to get pieces in the right places.”
Despite the defensive woes, the Blues matched Bath run-for-run early on, and with a six-run second inning, PM took a brief lead, 9-8.
Curtis King led off the big inning with a walk. Braedyn Houck followed with an RBI triple, bringing home King, and he scored on Kyler Ramsey’s sacrifice fly to left field. With the bases empty, Brayden Holdren started another barrage with a double and moved to third when Lane Luckton’s hard ground ball was misplayed at shortstop. One out later, Caleb Clark laced a double that drove in two runs, moving to third on a Colby Camden single and then scoring on a passed ball. Michael Fleming followed on another base hit, and Camden scored on a perfectly executed double steal to put the Blues in front.
The Chargers posted four more runs in the third inning, but once again PM responded. Houck singled and moved to third on a wild pitch, later scoring on Ramsey’s RBI groundout. The Blues then loaded the bases, and Camden drove in two runs with a single to tie the game at 12-12.
“The good thing was we battled,” said Loy. “We kept coming back, but [unfortunately] we weren’t able to come back enough.”
Bath regained the lead the very next half inning and never looked back as the Blues ran out of steam at the plate. PM recorded just two more hits and mustered only five more base runners the rest of the way.
Houck led the PM offense, going 5-for-5 at the plate with a triple, scoring three runs and picking up five stolen bases. Camden had two hits and drove in a pair of runs for the Blues.
Gunnar Whiddon and Issac Ingram sparked the Bath bats, with each player recording three hits, scoring twice and picking up five RBIs.
Holdren, in a relief appearance on the mound, took the hard-luck loss for PM, giving up only five hits, with no earned runs, and striking out nine over the final four innings. Houck had pitched the first three innings, striking out six and surrendering eight hits, three walks and 12 runs, five of them earned. Ingram was the winning pitcher, striking out seven in five innings of work while allowing four hits, three walks and three runs, one earned.
GC 4, PM 0
On Thursday in Stuarts Draft, the Blues ran into a buzz saw on the mound, as Grace Christian’s Davis Reid pitched a complete-game gem. In his seven innings, Reid allowed just one hit and struck out 18, including 12 of the last 14 batters he faced. Houck recorded PM’s lone hit, and the Warriors improved to 7-1.
“We played better against Grace Christian,” said Loy, noting the team’s improved defensive effort, “but we ran into a dominant pitcher on the mound. [Reid] is the best pitcher we have seen all year.”
The Blues were scheduled to play host to district rival Highland County yesterday and will continue district action at home against Narrows on Thursday at 5 p.m. The Blues will then play five games in eight days, starting with a home game against district rival Eastern Montgomery on Tuesday at 5 p.m.
FIGHTING BLUE Brayden Holdren arrives safely on third base as Bath County’s Owen Perdue scrambles for the ball. (Lucretia VanBrocklin photo)
PM SOPHOMORE third baseman Caleb Clark tries to tag out the Bath County baserunner. At the plate, Clark had one hit and two RBIs, and he scored a run. (Lucretia VanBrocklin photo)
