Roughriders blank Jay

Zach Pryor drew a one-out walk in the third inning.
Double play.
Kyle Selvey walked to lead off the fourth.
Double play.
Chandler Jackson connected for a pinch-hit single to start the sixth.
Double play.
The trio of double plays limited Jay County’s scoring chances as it finished with just four hits Friday in a 2-0 loss to the visiting St. Marys Memorial Roughriders.
The Patriots had runners on second and third in the bottom of the seventh inning with a chance to pull even, but Memorial pitcher Brandon Coffey got a pop up and a strikeout to end the game.
“Our pitching has been good. Our defense has been good. … But we always seem to get a pop out or a bad strikeout when we need the ball put in play,” said JCHS coach Lea Selvey. “I think they can get that done, but they’ve got to believe in themselves that they can get it done.”
Jay County (5-7) had its opportunity to pull even as Kyle Selvey led off the bottom of the seventh inning with an infield single. Jason Houston then delivered a single to left-center field to put two runners on base with no one out.
Coffey took care of a Tanner Reynolds pop up on the infield for the first out, but then allowed Selvey and Houston to advance when he fired a high fastball all the way to the backstop. Coffey came back to induce a pop up in foul territory from Keenan James, and then struck out Toby McCallister on another high fastball to secure the win.
“Obviously that’s big when you have a high school pitcher who can come back and do that,” said Memorial coach Dave Huber of Coffey’s effort. “When you get up 2-0, you’ve got to keep going. If we had been able to put a few more runs on the board, that last inning wouldn’t have been quite so tense. But I’m proud of the guys for hanging in there, fighting through it and doing their job.”
Jay County had its first chance to score in the second inning after Reynolds led off with a double. But Coffey retired the next three batters in a row to end the threat.
Then came the double plays, two of which were converted off of line drives.
In the fourth inning Landry Inman lined out to center fielder Nathan Vogel, who made the catch and throw in one motion to double Pryor off of first base. The Patriots had the hit-and-run on in the sixth inning when Alex Dunn ripped a line drive to third baseman Mason Gross, who doubled pinch runner Lance Ferguson off of first base.
The more conventional double play came in the fourth inning, when Houston hit a bouncer back to Coffey to start a 1-6-3.
“To be honest … I’m not sure two weeks ago we would have done that, but I think we’re moving in the right direction,” said Huber, whose team had lost its first 10 games before topping Celina on Thursday. “We are a team that has been struggling this year. We played an extremely difficult schedule up front and I have a very young team as far as experience is concerned. This past week we’ve finally been able to put things together. We’re much improved, and hopefully we can keep that rolling.”
Memorial got both of its runs in the third inning after Vogel led off with a single to left field and then stole second base. He advanced to third base on a groundout and scored on an infield single by Jacob Little. An errant throw on a pickoff attempt allowed Little (two hits, one run, one RBI) to take second base, and he came around to score on a single to left-center field by Gross (3-for-3 with an RBI and two stolen bases).
Landry Inman took the loss as the two runs against him came on 10 hits. He struck out four and did not allow a walk.
“He pitched well enough to win,” said Lea Selvey. “He was throwing strikes. He didn’t walk anybody. … That’s what we preach to them all the time — work fast, throw strikes, change speeds.”[[In-content Ad]]