Defense ends up costing LAHS its baseball season

Defense ends up costing LAHS its baseball season

SIDMAN-The second seeded Forest Hills Rangers exploded for nine runs in the fourth and fifth innings and turned a 3-1 deficit into an 11-4 victory over the defending state champion Lewistown Panthers, in a first round District 6 Class AA Baseball playoff game on Monday.

The 11-5 Rangers won't have much time to enjoy the victory as they will host the seventh seed, Philipsburg-Osceola this afternoon. The Panthers closed the books on a frustrating 5-13 season.

Early on the Rangers could not solve the Panthers Kalen Gearhart as he held Forest Hills to only a single hit and run through the first three innings.

"Their pitcher had some pop and juice on his ball in the early going," Rangers coach Joe Carpenter said. "He had us off stride, but then he had some control problems and we were able to take advantage."

"Kalen has done a good job pitching for us all year," Lewistown coach John Bell praised. "He has been able to strike out about every fourth batter and that's what he did today."

Jared Dyer led off the game with a single and came around to score the first run of the game on consecutive singles by Seth Napikoski and Zach Smith. But the Panthers were unable to do any further damage when the

Rangers ended the inning on a 4-6-3 double play.

Lewistown was able to increase the lead in the third inning with the help of the Forest Hills defense. Both Dyer and Napikoski reached on infield errors around a single by Gearhart. Smith drove in Dyer with his second RBI of the game and Josh Oburn's single plated another run, but a missed suicide squeeze and a caught stealing kept the Panthers from doing more damage.

The Rangers were able to get on the board in the third inning without the benefit of a hit. Gabe Wingard was hit by a pitch and Nate Shilcosky was walked. Sam Gallaher's fly out to center moved Wingard to third, who then scored when Jake Oswalt struck out, but the ball got past the catcher.

The wheels fell off the wagon for the Panthers with the first batter in the Forest Hills' fourth inning. Josh McGinnis hit a short fly ball between second base and right field and as both players went for the ball, they collided and the ball fell to the ground and McGinnis wound up at second base.

"The right fielder said he called the ball, but with the wind blowing the second baseman didn't hear him," Bell said. "I thought we still had the out at second base, but we didn't get the call. Our defense has been our problem all year and it showed again (today)."

Brock Jennings then singled on an 0-2 pitch to right field. Then after looking at two straight curves for called strikes, Ed Richardson lined a single to center, scoring Jake Madison who was the courtesy runner. Jim Mehall then hit a sharp grounder to second base, which the official scorer generously awarded a hit.

After a strikeout, Shilcosky laid down the picture-perfect squeeze bunt as it rolled past the pitcher for an infield hit, bringing home Jennings to tie the score at 3-3. After another strikeout, Oswalt coaxed a walk from Gearhart, giving the Rangers their first lead of the game at 4-3.

Dan Myers then came through with a bases loaded single scoring both Mehall and Shilcosky. Oswalt scored the sixth run of the inning when McGinnis struck out, but advanced as the ball got by the catcher.

Forest Hills added three more runs in the sixth as Richardson singled, Mehall walked and Wingard reached on an error. The Panthers looked like they were going to get out of the inning as they retired the next two hitters.

But Oswalt walked forcing in Mehall and Myers came through with his second big hit of the game as he lined a single to center scoring Wingard and Gallaher for a 10-3 lead.

"Those were pretty big hits for a freshman," Carpenter said of Myers. "He has been doing that for us all year. He is one of four freshmen that starts on this team."

Despite getting eight hits over the final four innings, the Panthers were able to plate only a single run. That came in the sixth inning. With two outs, Chris Tressler singled and went to second on a wild pitch. He advanced to third on Matt Espigh's single and scored on Dyer's infield single.