Knocked off on walk off

YORKTOWN — There were no outs in a tie game with a runner on second in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Jackson Edwards got set for the pitch. He started his motion, then quickly spun around and threw to Dusty Pearson. The shortstop executed the tag perfectly and Jacob Johnson was out.

The Patriots couldn’t take advantage of the momentum.

A pair of walks and a hit batsman loaded the bases for the Trojans and Max Upchurch. He wouldn’t waste the opportunity.

Upchurch’s walk-off single up the middle lifted the New Castle Trojans over Jay County High School team 4-3 in the Class 3A Sectional 24 semifinal baseball game on Friday.

“I’m not shocked or surprised at all that it ended in the seventh inning,” New Castle coach Jody Gray said. “I knew from the early onset that whoever had that last at bat was going to have the upper hand.”

While the Trojans (6-19) came through in the seventh inning, that wasn’t the story of the first half of the game.

The Patriots (13-14) came out swinging in the bottom of the first inning and got the better of pitcher Gavin Frazier and the Trojan defense. The first two batters were able to reach base on errors by catcher Garren Mefford and third baseman Haidyn Bulmer.

The Patriots’ top hitter, Sam Myers, then slapped a single to shallow left-center field to move Josh Dowlen and Edwards to third and second, respectively.

Pearson had to battle in his at bat, eventually working a full count. Frazier’s next pitch was outside, but Pearson started to go around. The home plate umpire immediately pointed down to the first base umpire to ask his opinion.

“I was just thinking, ‘Don’t be a strike. Don’t be a strike. Don’t be a strike,’” Pearson said. “That’s all you can do.”

Pearson got his wish, drawing the walk and pushing in the first run of the game for the Patriots. Edwards later scored on a passed ball and Myers came around after another error by Bulmer to give Jay County a 3-0 lead.

The Patriots had all the momentum.

Kade Sommers started the game on the mound, allowing two walks in the first inning. He nearly made it through, but an error by Dowlen in center field allowed one to score. Sommers didn’t hang his head, coming back with a strikeout to end the inning without any more damage.

The teams went scoreless for the next three innings before disaster struck for the Patriots in the fifth.

Myers ripped a one-out single to right field. The ball reached Jonathan Eberhart so quickly that he tried to throw Myers out at first base, but because Upchurch wasn’t near the bag, it appeared to Myers that the ball was coming near his head. Myers ducked as he was running through the bag and subsequently slipped on the base, spraining his ankle.

“We’ve been battling injuries all year long, so the mentality is next man up,” JCHS coach Todd Farr said. “You can’t replace Sam Myers. Sam Myers is a heck of a ball player, so that hurt us there.”

Brady Jetmore pinch ran for Myers while he got his ankle taped. Despite the injury, Myers wanted to go back out into the field.

“I’m a leader on this team,” Myers said. “I wanted to show my teammates that you’ve just got to fight if you want to win. So that’s what I tried to do.”

The Patriots were holding their breath and were nervously looking on while Myers was testing his ankle prior to the inning.

Tides started to turn in the bottom of the fifth, after Johnson reached base on a throw that pulled Ryne Goldsworthy off the bag. A pair of errors by Myers at short and Parker Nichols at third that allowed a run to score prompted Farr to take Sommers and Myers out of the game and enter Carter Fugiett at shortstop and Aiden Phillips at pitcher.

Phillips struck out the first batter he faced, but a dropped third strike and a throwing error by Goldsworthy allowed Gannon Harris to reach home and tie up the game.

“We just made too many errors and gave them too many opportunities,” Farr said. “They got us. That’s been our thing that’s been getting us all year long. Made too many errors.”

Outside of the first inning, Frazier was able to keep the Patriots’ bats quiet. He was tested in the bottom of the sixth when a dropped third strike, a walk and a hit by pitch loaded the bases, but he escaped by inducing a groundout from Edwards.

Frazier only allowed five hits while striking out nine batters in the winning effort.

“He’s a really good pitcher,” Farr said. “They play in a really tough conference, so their record may not show, but he’s their dude. They rode him out.”

New Castle will face the winner of Friday’s other semifinal game between Yorktown and Delta on Monday in the sectional championship.