Knights eliminated from playoffs in pitching duel

By ROB HAMILTON

North­mor did nearly every­thing they needed to do in order to move into the regional tour­na­ment on Thursday.

In their dis­trict final against Fred­er­ick­town, held at Lancaster’s Beavers Field, the Knights got very good pitch­ing from Zach Car­roll and an excel­lent defen­sive per­for­mance in which they didn’t com­mit a sin­gle error. They also were able to get run­ners in scor­ing posi­tion in five of the seven innings.

Unfor­tu­nately for the Knights, they were not able to get that one big hit that would put runs on the board; which would hurt them when Fredericktown’s Nash Cun­ning­ham finally broke a score­less tie with a two-run sin­gle in the bot­tom of the sixth.

While the Knights got two run­ners on base in the sev­enth, Fred­er­ick­town was able to get out of that jam to end Northmor’s sea­son at 17–11.

“We just couldn’t get that big hit,” said Knight coach Buck Work­man. “Zach pitched a great game and we had no errors. I can live with that — we didn’t give it to them.”

North­mor put run­ners in scor­ing posi­tion in each of the first four innings, but couldn’t plate any of their baserunners.

The sec­ond inning, in par­tic­u­lar, was a lost oppor­tu­nity to score. Two straight one-out errors by the Fred­dies put Char­lie Burggraf and Zach Fout on first and sec­ond base; how­ever, the Knights then grounded into a dou­ble play to end that threat.

Car­roll cruised through the first five innings, only giv­ing up four baserun­ners, but with two out in the sixth, he walked Mitch Sellers.

Work­man than swapped Car­roll for Josh Mont­gomery on the mound. How­ever, after Sell­ers stole sec­ond, he ordered an inten­tional walk to put two run­ners on base.

The coach then moved Car­roll back to the mound, but Nash Cun­ning­ham cracked a two-run sin­gle to give his team the lead.

Fout reached on an error in the sev­enth inning and, with two outs, James Don­ner walked. Fred­er­ick­town coach Tom Craze then replaced start­ing pitcher Derek Thomp­son with Matt Smith, who retired Zach Wise­man to end the game.

North­mor got sin­gles from Wise­man and Don­ner in the con­test. Car­roll struck out five, walked one and sur­ren­dered four hits in suf­fer­ing the tough-luck loss.

Work­man, who had not taken a team to the dis­trict finals before in his coach­ing career with the Knights, was pleased with his team’s effort in the defeat.

“It’s been fun,” he said. “Each game we won was bonus time. It’s good for the under­class­men to see what it’s like, so we can make a habit of this. That’s the goal.”

The full story and pic­tures will be in next Wednesday’s print edition.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on May 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.