With a 4-1 loss in Game One and a near collapse in a 12-11 Game Two win on Tuesday night at Soden’s Grove, the Emporia A-16 Blues were provided a little humility compliments of the Manhattan Manco — and it wasn’t the first time.
Two weeks ago after run-ruling Manhattan in the Jock’s Nitch Championship, Manhattan swept the Blues two days later.
So once again riding high following their Burlington tournament championship from this past weekend, the Blues were pulled back to earth in Game One.
Then while the Blues began to coast to a Game Two win — and once again felt that ire of supremacy — here came Manhattan with a slice of humble pie and a six-run sixth inning to take a three-run lead.
“Like I’ve been harping on this team the last couple of weeks, we get a team down, we score a bunch of runs and we just put it on cruise control,” Blues coach Jerry Cook said. “Obviously against a good team like this, you can’t do that because they’ll come back, they’ll find a way. One little hit, one error and they’re back in it.”
Or five walks and a hit batsman will do the trick as well. Those were the gifts the Blues handed Manhattan in the sixth inning of Game Two. All Manco needed to do was rest their bats on their shoulders as three different Emporia pitchers handed them the lead.
Manhattan had just two singles in the six-run sixth, erasing what was once a five-run Emporia lead to take an 11-8 lead.
Matt Fry had nearly built that lead by himself, driving in five of Emporia’s first eight runs in the first three innings.
Fry also felt responsible for blowing the lead. He came on in the sixth with one out and the bases loaded and hit Brooks DeBord to give up the tying run. He also yielded the go-ahead runs on Taylor Hilgers’ two-run single.
Fry had the first chance to shift the momentum back in Emporia’s favor as he led off the bottom of the sixth.
“My goal was to get on base,” Fry said. “I knew I was going to when I went up. I was going to score that inning.”
Fry hit a grounder to Manhattan first baseman J.D Garetson and Garetson bobbled the ball. Fry hustled down the line and dove to first just before Garetson stepped on the bag.
Ethan Hall followed with an infield single and Jacob Loucks brought Fry around with another single. Remington Pinick worked a full count, and Trey Francis threw over Pinick’s head to walk Pinick and score Hall on the wild pitch, pulling the Blues within one.
Chase Ricketts relieved Francis and got Ryan Huth to ground out, but Huth’s groundout scored Loucks to tie the game.
With one out, Garetson caught Dustin Lingenfelter’s foul over his shoulder in shallow right, and Pinick tagged up and moved to third.
After his spectacular catch, Garetson made another costly error when Nate Flanagin hit a chopper to first that got past Garetson to score Pinick and give the Blues the go-ahead run.
Flanagin was thrown out trying to advance to third on the play, but the damage had been done.
“In that sixth inning, we kicked it up a notch,” Dusty Maas said. “If we can do what we did in that sixth inning, we’re a pretty good team.”
Fry pitched around a single and a walk in the seventh, stranding the tying run at third by forcing Rickets to fly out to shallow left field to end a sloppily pitched game by both teams.
“I was a little nervous. My goal was to just throw strikes,” Fry said. “I knew I had a good defense behind me. Walks were killing us the whole game and I knew I just needed to pitch strikes.”
The Blues got a much cleaner- pitched game in the opener from Pinick. Pinick went all seven innings and only one of Manhattan’s four runs were earned.
Hall committed back-to-back errors with one out in the second that allowed Manhattan to extend the inning and take a 2-0 lead. Hall committed his fourth and Emporia’s fifth error in the game in the seventh, allowing Manco to add an insurance run.
The timely hits that won it for the Blues in Game Two never came in the opener. They left six runners on base and scored their only run in the third inning on Fry’s RBI double, which scored Maas. Maas had two of the Blues’ six hits.
Fry led the Blues in Game Two, going 3-for-3, reaching base four times, scoring three runs and driving in five. Loucks went 2-for-3 with a double, a walk and an RBI.
Emporia moved to 20-7 with the split. The Blues play again tonight against Andover at Soden’s Grove.
Tuesday at Soden’s Grove
Game One
Manhattan 4, Emporia 1
Manhattan 020 001 1 — 4 9 0
Emporia 001 000 0 — 1 6 5
WP — Anderson. LP — Pinick.
2B — MAN: Smith, Hilgers; EMP: Fry. 3B — EMP: Maas.
Game Two
Emporia 12, Manhattan 11
Manhattan 300 026 0 — 11 5 2
Emporia 242 004 X — 12 11 1
WP — Fry. LP — Francis.
2B — EMP: Fry, Loucks, Flanagin.