Errors finish Indians (05/09/05)

MINSTER, Ohio — The Fort Recovery pitching staff allowed just two hits over the final four innings and five in all. Todd Post and Matt Hein combined in the effort, giving up just a single earned run.

And yet, the Indians are still looking for their first sectional title since 2001.

The Fort Recovery baseball team yielded a couple of unearned runs and could not get on the board against Alex Leugers in a 3-0 loss to the New Bremen Cardinals in the second of two sectional championship games at Minster Saturday.

Marion Local knocked off the top-seeded host Wildcats 6-5 in the first game. New Bremen and Marion Local will meet in district semifinal action at Minster Monday, May 16 at 5 p.m.

“Right there in the first inning ... you can’t give a team with a really good pitcher like that a chance,” said Fort Recovery coach Aaron Vaughn, whose team had beaten New Bremen 6-2 in Midwest Athletic Conference play Friday night. “If you give them runs, then you really have to work even that much harder. When you get down it’s hard to come back.”

Post and Hein nearly matched Leugers, a Xavier recruit, pitch for pitch, but the second-seeded Indians didn’t make the routine plays Vaughn had talked to them about in the dugout prior to the game.

New Bremen (12-9) got its only earned run of the game in the first inning, opening with an infield single from Andy McMurray, a walk from Craig Eiting and an RBI infield single by Brian Garman. The Cardinals loaded the bases when designated hitter Logan O’Neill reached on an error, but Post pitched his way out of the situation to escape with just a 1-0 deficit.

But, the Cardinals got another run in the second after a two-out triple to center field by McMurray. Eiting followed with a slow grounder, but the ball rolled past Chris Galdeen for an error which allowed McMurray to score.

The third run came in the fifth inning, and was also scored by McMurray. He reached base after catcher Greg Faller dropped the ball on a strikeout, and came in to score on an RBI single from Garman.

“If you put the ball in play good things will happen — if you put pressure on the defense,” said New Bremen coach Justin Firks. “(Friday) night we went down looking in a lot of situations where we had runners in scoring position. And today I think we did a better job of manufacturing some runs.”

Post took the loss, giving up three runs — one earned — on five hits in five-plus innings. He struck out five and walked one.

Hein struck out two and walked one in two scoreless innings of relief.

“For the most part I thought our pitching was pretty good,” said Vaughn. “They took advantage of errors. That was the name of the game.”

Fort Recovery had at least one runner on base in every inning except the fifth, but never got anything going against Leugers. Before Friday’s win over the Cardinals, the Indians had put together just one hit and no runs over the previous three games.

Their last chance against Lueguers came when Hein delivered a two-out, seventh-inning double to right-center field. However, Galdeen’s line shot to center field was caught by Eiting for the final out.

Leugers allowed just five hits as he earned the shutout victory. He struck out eight batters and walked one.

“He didn’t have his best stuff, but he made quality pitches in big situations,” said Firks. “Defensively we made all the plays and we had just enough offense to put us on top.”[[In-content Ad]]