Blue Devils fall in District title game
Caden Nagle suffered through one mistake-riddled inning during the District 6 2A championship at PNG Field.
May 24, 2018
The Bellwood-Antis baseball team lost Wednesday’s District 6 Championship to Southern Huntington at PNG Field in Altoona.
Sloppy play was a big reason why.
After building a 2-0 in their first at-bat, the Devils fell apart defensively in the third inning when a pair of errors and one misplayed ball opened the doors for the Rockets to tie the game.
“We just had one bad inning,” said Coach Steve Conlon. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to make plays that we usually do, which ended up hurting us in the end.”
Assistant coach Tom Partner thought the outcome could have been different without the huge swing the Devils allowed in the third.
“Defensively, one inning really hurt us. We imploded… you can’t make mistakes against good teams in big games,” said Coach Partner. “If we don’t make those mistakes, the game most likely would have stayed a 2-0 or 2-1 game with momentum still in our favor.”
We imploded… you can’t make mistakes against good teams in big games.
— Coach Partner
Lead-off hitter Ian McFarland began the bottom of the first with a first-pitch base hit for the Devils offense and the second hitter Trent Walker reached on a walk. Jack Showalter brought them both home with an RBI single off Southern starter Austin Miller, who settled down nicely after the shaky start.
Things changed quickly in the third. Starting pitcher Caden Nagle threw high on a play to first, and one batter later Showalter dropped a pop foul that could easily have gone for the second out of the inning. Later, Trent Walker misread a ball hit sharply to center, coming in to make the grab when he should have retreated. The ball off the bat of Mason Smith gave the Rockets their first run, and later Smith tied the game when he scored off a single by Matt Parks.
Parks and Riley Myers went for back-to-back doubles in the fifth to give Southern its first at 4-2, chasing Nagle from the game. The Rockets would get an insurance run off Mark Stewart in the sixth.
The Devils, meanwhile, had just one inning after the first when they threatened to score, getting Walker and Travis Luensmann aboard in the fifth, but Miller was able to get control and strike out Showalter to end the frame.
Miller went 6 2/3 innings before reaching the 100-pitch limit on his final pitch to McFarland, which struck the senior out looking. Miller fanned eight and walked only one.
“Their pitcher was decent–kept us off balanced and hit his spots,” Coach [partner said. “We did hit him some, but we didn’t consistently hit with runners in scoring position. If we score one or two more in the first, that might have been too big of a deficit for them to come back, but we left runners on early.”
Smith came on to relieve him and induced Walker into a ground out to short to seal the victory.
Despite the loss, B-A still advances to the PIAA tournament for the third time in the last four years. There they will face the District 4 champion, which will come from the final four of South Williamsport, Wellsboro, Troy and Southern Columbia.
“The loss hurts but we need to regroup and refocus on the what’s next–a state playoff run,” Coach Partner said. “If we can get some timely hitting and limit our mistakes, we think we are as good as anyone left in the state. It would be awesome to give this great group of seniors another exciting state playoff run!”
