By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
A successful season for Coach Trey Meade and his Manchester Greyhounds baseball squad came to a disappointing close on Friday, May 29 as the Greyhounds were eliminated from the postseason with an 11-2 loss to the Huntington Huntsmen in a Division VI district semifinal contest played at South Point High School.
The Hounds had knocked off Huntington 11-9 way back on March 26 and had some confidence that Friday’s game would result in them making a trip to the district championship game, but the Huntsmen made an early statement with a three-run first inning and never looked back as they punched their ticket to the finals.
The Hounds were the first to score in the semifinal, getting a run in the top of the first when Traevyn Hilderbrand led off the game with a single and came around to score on a two-base hit by Clayton Colvin.
After tossing a no-hitter in the district quarterfinal win, senior Leland Horner got the starting nod against Huntington and as it turned out, it just wasn’t his day. Horner only lasted 1 1/3 innings, walked five batters and was touched up for five runs, three of them earned before he was relieved by Luke Applegate. The early outburst by the Huntsmen fave them a 5-1 advantage after two innings of play.
While the Manchester offense struggled against the offerings of Huntington pitcher Brayden Elliott, the Huntsmen offense added to their lead in the bottom half of the fourth, scoring three times off of Applegate, taking advantage of Manchester miscues, and grabbing. a commanding 8-1 lead. Huntington tacked on a matchstick in the bottom of the fifth to lead 9-1 before the Greyhound finally got another run on the board, but it was the proverbial “too little, too late”.
In the top of the sixth, Manchester’s Colvin drew a walk, then later slid home on a wild pitch to make it 9-2, but the Huntsmen answered with two more in their half of the sixth to go up 11-2. In their final at-bat of the spring and two strikeouts and a ground out later, the young and talented Greyhounds were done for the season, victims of the “bad night to have a bad night”.
The Huntsmen only had five hits in the win but took advantage of 12 walks issued by Manchester pitching and five errors committed by the Hounds’ defense, while the Greyhound offense only mustered three hits and struck out 13 times.
Manchester closes the season with an overall record of 14-5 and were the undisputed champions of the small school division of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference, finishing with a 10-2 conference mark and their roster had only a single senior, Leland Horner.
Huntington, the #3 seed, moved on to the Division VI district title game, where they were defeated 9-6 by Eastern Meigs.
Manchester
100 001 0—2
Huntington
320 312 x —11
Manchester Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Hilderbrand 4-1-1-0, Applegate 4-0-0-0, Colvin 1-1-1-1, Barnhart 2-0-0-0, Inman 3-0-0-0, Horner 2-0-1-0, Rickett 3-0-0-0, Doyle 2-0-0-0, Hayslip 3-0-0-0, Team 25-2-3-1.
Extra-Base Hits: Colvin 2B
Huntington Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Throckmorton 4-2-2-1, McDonald 3-2-1-0, Jordan 3-2-1-0, Elliott 2-2-0-1, Dyer 0-0-0-0, Lowery 3-1-0-1, Hirsch 2-0-0-0, Long 1-1-1-1, Barr 2-0-0-0, Beardsley 3-0-0-0, Davis 0-0-0-0, Team 23-11-5-4.
Extra-Base Hits: Jordan 2B
Manchester Pitching
Horner (L)- 1.1 IP, 2 H, 5 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 48 pitches
Applegate- 4 IP, 3 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 6 BB, 7 K, 100 pitches
Rickett- 0.2 IP, 1 BB, 1 K, 14 pitches
Huntington Pitching
Elliott (W)- 6.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 12 K, 113 pitches
Dyer- 0.2 IP, 1 K, 7 pitches
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