The Parry McCluer High School baseball team closed out Pioneer District regular-season play with a pair of losses last week, and with those setbacks, the Fighting Blues lost a potential chance to improve their seeding in the upcoming district tournament.
PM suffered an 11-1 loss in five innings at Narrows on Tuesday of last week and dropped the final home game of the season, 18-8, to Bath County two days later. As a result, the Blues fell to 3-12 on the season, and completed the Pioneer District slate with an 0-6 record.
The district tournament is scheduled to start Thursday, and as the fourth seed, the Blues will travel to take on regular-season champion Narrows in a quarterfinal game at 5 p.m. For updates, visit www.thenews- gazette.com.
Though the Blues left runners in scoring position three times against the Green Wave (11-4 overall, 6-0 district) on Tuesday of last week at Narrows, the game was never really in doubt. Narrows plated two runs in the second inning and stormed out to a 6-0 lead before PM could finally push a run across the plate.
That PM tally came in the fifth inning. Colby Camden was hit by a pitch and moved to second on a balk. Lane Luckton then singled to chase Camden home and put the Blues on the board.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Green Wave put the game away, however. The first three Narrows batters singled to score one run. Two of the next three walked to push across another score, and two PM errors accounted for the other tallies to invoke the 10-run rule.
Narrows finished the game with just eight hits, led by Sam McGlothlin’s 2-for-3 effort, which included a triple and two RBIs, but the Green Wave was able to take advantage of five walks, four wild pitches and four PM errors to secure the win.
Cooper Helvey picked up the win on the mound for the home team, striking out nine in his five innings of work and scattering four hits.
Kyle Smals, Camden, Curtis King and Luckton accounted for PM’s hits at the top of the lineup. Only two other PM batters reached base in the contest.
BC 18, PM 8
The Blues had one of their biggest innings of the season against Bath County last Thursday in Buena Vista. PM sent 10 batters to the plate in that frame, scoring six times.
Kyler Ramsey started the rally when he reached on an error, moved up two bases on wild pitches and eventually scored on a passed ball. Adison Haynes, who had walked, scored on Sam Griffin’s RBI groundout, and Eduar Meza singled to drive in Dylan Smals, who had also walked. Another walk and an error later, King laced a triple to drive in two more runs, and the Blues completed the big inning.
The problem was that the Blues had already given up nine runs by that point, and Bath County (10-5, 3-3) scored in every inning to hand the Blues their sixth district loss of the season.
The Chargers had nine hits in the contest, led by Gunnar Whiddon, who went 2-for-4 with three RBIs. At the same time, however, the first four batters in the Bath lineup scored 12 runs on just three hits as the PM defense struggled.
The Blues finished the game with 11 errors, and while PM pitchers picked up 11 strikeouts, they also walked nine and were charged with eight wild pitches.
Offensively, the Blues were paced by Meza, who went 2-for-3 with two runs and an RBI. Griffin, PM’s lone senior, finished senior night with a hit and drove in two runs, while King recorded three RBIs in the contest.
The Blues were scheduled to conclude the regular season yesterday at Liberty (Bedford).
BATH COUNTY’S Luke Turner slides as PM freshman Dylan Smals waits at third base. (Ronnie Coffey photo)
