Uh oh, no-no

YORKTOWN — Despite a goose egg in the hit column, the Patriots nearly pulled off the unthinkable.

Jay County High School’s baseball team scored four runs in the top of the seventh inning, all while not recording a hit, but had their rally fall short in a 6-4 loss to the Guerin Catholic Golden Eagles on Wednesday in the Class 3A Sectional 24 quarterfinal.

“First off, let me say how proud I am of these guys for staying in and battling,” said JCHS coach Lea Selvey, whose team ended the season 13-11. “I’m just very proud of them.

“We’re not there yet. At times we’ve been there, but we’ve got to get a little better. Almost found a way to get it done. Hats off to those guys. Hats off to my seniors. Just a great bunch of kids to be around.”

Guerin Catholic, which benefited from four Patriot errors, advances to the sectional semifinal Friday against Hamilton Heights. The Huskies topped Delta 2-0 earlier Wednesday.

Jay County, sectional champions in both 2018 and ’19, simply could not break through against Guerin Catholic senior Spencer Wilt.

The lefty had struck out nine, including all three batters in the second inning, and aside from a hit by pitch in the first he was perfect through six innings.

With one out in the top of the seventh and the Golden Eagles up 6-0, Wilt started to lose control a bit. He walked Crosby Heniser on six pitches, then hit Blake Caldwell in the foot. Austin Curts drew a walk as well before Wilt plunked Dusty Pearson to break the shutout.

“We knew the kid could bring it a little bit,” Selvey said. “His curve is a little bit better than I thought. He kept us off speed and utilized that.

“We battled. We knew eventually he would get wild but I was hoping it would be the third our fourth inning, not the last inning.”

The Pearson hit by pitch ended Wilt’s night at 6 1/3 innings of no-hit ball with two walks.

“He has been trending upwards all year,” Guerin Catholic coach Tony Meyer said. “He has been throwing well probably for the last month, month and a half. He’s one of the few seniors we have playing regularly. Today, all his hard work came to fruition and it was outstanding.”

Freshman Cuinn Morrow then took the hill and struck out Gavin Myers with the bases loaded. Emotions flared after the punch out, and Myers was ejected by the home plate umpire after slamming his bat twice.

Down 0-2 in the count, Josh Dowlen lofted a ball to right that GCHS freshman Davis Wagner tracked toward the foul line. Wagner, running in stride, had the ball tip off the toe of his glove, allowing two Patriots to score.

The play was ruled an error, keeping the Golden Eagles’ combined no-hit bid intact.

Morrow struck out Sam Dunlavy — the Patriots’ 11th of the game — to complete the combined no-hitter.

“Cuinn has been our closer and probably our No. 2 reliever all year,” Meyer said. “He throws the ball hard and he hits the zone, so honestly when he came in I wasn’t all that worried.”

Guerin Catholic scored the game’s first run in the home half off the first inning as Will Fremion, who singled, reached home on an error. In the second, the Golden Eagles got a two-run single from Adam Novelen before an error brought in another run for a 4-0 advantage. Then in the sixth, Guerin Catholic plated two more, one on another JCHS error and the other on a Braden Reel sacrifice fly.

“Our motto is, ‘Put the ball in play and good things will happen,’” Meyer said. “We were fortunate. Couple errors here, there, guys were putting the ball in play and it works.”

JCHS starter Austin Curts lasted five innings, gave up five runs — two earned — on four hits while walking three and striking out four.

“He is competitive more than people think,” Selvey said. “We had a couple errors behind him that hurt us. That always adds to your pitch total, but he sucked it up and got after it.

“Proud of his efforts he gave us all year long.”