Tamed by the Tigers

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YORKTOWN — The Tigers jumped on the Patriots early.

As they continued to pad the lead, the Patriot offense went silent.

By the time it picked up, the hole was too much to overcome.

A year after playing for a sectional championship and poised to have the pieces to take the next step, Jay County High School’s baseball team had its season come to a close Monday with a 10-6 loss to the host Yorktown Tigers in the Class 3A Sectional 24 semifinal.

“Just didn’t play our best ball today, that’s for sure,” Jacob Geesaman, a JCHS senior who will now shift his focus to playing for Rose-Hulman, said. “All in all it just came down to not hitting the ball as much as we usually do.”

Yorktown advances to the sectional championship against the Delta Eagles, who earned a 3-2 walk-off win over Hamilton Heights in the first semifinal.

Already leading 5-1 after five innings, Yorktown (15-11) tacked on three more runs off Jay County reliever Jake Myers. Sullivan Swingley had a two-run single with bases loaded, and Brogan Miller followed with an RBI double to make it 8-1 Tigers.

Jay County (15-6), which won 12 straight games this season but lost its final three, scored two runs in the home half of the frame on an infield error and a double steal with runners at the corners. Yorktown starter Cole Barr struck out Mitchel Frasher to end the threat.

In the next inning, Yorktown pushed across two more runs to make it 10-3 as the Patriots were down to their final three outs.

“Cole did a nice job,” Yorktown coach PJ Fauquher said. Barr, an Indiana University commit, scattered two hits over six innings, allowing three unearned runs while striking out nine and walking two. From the second to the fifth innings he retired 11 straight batters.

Fauquher was just as pleased with his late offense too.

“I’m glad we were able to score some other runs late that gave us a little bit of a cushion for the seventh inning,” he said. The five runs the Tigers scored in the final two innings were the difference.

JCHS junior Cole Stigleman led off the bottom of the seventh inning with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch. Ryan Schlechty walked, and Geesaman moved the runners as he grounded out to Barr at short — Justin Cox pitched the seventh — before Ethan Myers scored Stigleman with a groundout to third.

Max Moser, who was 0-for-2 with a hit by pitch, ripped an RBI single to left field to score Schlechty to extend his hitting streak to 18 games. He advanced on a passed ball before Michael Schlechty followed with a single to left to make it 10-6. Wyatt Geesaman then bounced out to third to end the game.

“I never felt like we were out of it because I knew we’d score some runs,” said JCHS coach Lea Selvey. “But it did take away a little bit of our aggressiveness on the bases.

“They’re a pretty good ball club. We didn’t have our best effort.”

Junior Gaven Hare started for the Patriots, and he allowed two runs in each of the first two innings. A throwing error plated the first run, and a Matt Phillips RBI made it 2-0 Tigers. Brady Horing hit a two-run single in the second, pushing Yorktown’s lead to 4-0.

“Getting off to a good start early was big for us,” Fauquher said. “We had a couple opportunities there in the third and fourth innings also that we didn’t capitalize on. But really getting off to a good start was very beneficial for us.”

Hare only lasted two innings, giving way to Myers. In the fourth, Yorktown loaded the bases with no outs. Myers got out of the jam by striking out Horine and inducing a grounder to Moser for a 5-2-3 inning-ending double play.

Hare and Myers were the two best pitchers for Jay County this season, but Monday they combined to walk eight batters. In all, the Tigers drew 11 walks.

“That has been a strong suit for us and it wasn’t today,” Selvey said. “Hats off to them.”