The regular-season was, to say the least, a struggle for the Parry McCluer baseball team. But the Blues have still managed to earn a spot in the upcoming Region C tournament.
The PM nine rallied for an 11-9 victory over Eastern Montgomery in the first round of the Pioneer District championships last Monday, May 17, to earn another game in the postseason before dropping an 8-1 decision to Narrows the next day and suffering a heartbreaker, 6-5 in nine innings, in the battle for third place last Thursday in Bath County.
With the win over Eastern Montgomery, the Blues will enter the regional tournament as the fourth seed and will face Auburn, the regular-season champion in the Mountain Empire District, in the opening round. That game is slated to be played today.
Things certainly looked grim for the Blues in that district contest against Eastern Montgomery. Parry McCluer fell behind, 8-2, after the first four innings. However, a seven-run fifth inning gave PM the lead, and the Blues survived a seventh-inning rally from the Mustangs to survive.
All seven of Parry McCluer’s fifth-inning runs came with two outs as the Blues took advantage of a trio of Eastern Montgomery errors and three wild pitches. Brylen Wade, Curtis King and Colby Camden all had RBI singles in the inning, accounting for three of Parry McCluer’s four hits in the frame, as the Blues turned their sixrun deficit into a 9-8 lead.
PM went on to tack on a couple of insurance runs in the seventh, again rallying with two outs. Braedyn Houck led off the inning with a single, and two outs later Camden reached on a walk. Both players scored when Peyton Ramsey drove them in with a base hit to push the Parry McCluer advantage to 11-8.
Eastern Montgomery threatened in the bottom of the inning, plating a run and putting the tying runs in scoring position with only one out. But on the mound, Houck induced a harmless pop-up in the infield and struck out the final batter to end the rally and preserve the victory.
Houck came on in relief midway through the second inning and picked up the victory on the hill. The senior went six innings while allowing three runs, none earned, on just one hit with 10 strikeouts.
Houck was also one of the leading hitters for the Blues, who received hits from eight players in the starting lineup. He went 2-for-4 with three runs scored and two stolen bases, while Camden went 2-for-2, scoring three times with an RBI.
The next day at Narrows, however, the Blues mustered only one hit through the first five innings, a lead-off single from Houck, and fell to regular-season champion Narrows, 8-1.
The Blues avoided the shutout with a single tally in the fifth as Peyton Ramsey drew a bases loaded walk to chase home Kyler Ramsey.
On Thursday of last week, PM seemed well on its way to a thirdplace finish in the tourney, but the Blues squandered a pitching gem from Brayden Holdren and fell to Bath County in nine innings.
Holdren pitched into the seventh inning for the Blues, allowing no runs through the first six and finishing the contest with 12 strikeouts.
Entering the seventh, the Blues held a 3-0 lead, thanks to a single tally in the first and two more in the third. In the first, King singled to drive home Camden, who had walked, while in the third, Houck’s sacrifice fly chased home King, and Holdren helped his own cause with an RBI single that plated Wade.
That’s the way the game stayed until that fateful seventh. Holdren struck out the first two batters he faced in that inning, but a single, a walk and an error allowed one run to score. Then a single drove in two more runs and sent the game into extra innings.
The Blues regained the lead in the eighth, with Peyton Ramsey driving in a run with a double. And PM was once again within one out of securing the victory; however, Bath County tied the game on an error. In the ninth, Kyler Ramsey singled to plate Houck to put the Blues back in front again, but Bath County scored two runs in the bottom of the inning to complete the comeback.
The Blues, who enter the Region C tournament with a 5-14 overall record, were led offensively by Houck, who had two hits, including a double, scoring once and driving in a run.
