The Emporia Post 5 AAA team is in a must-win situation today after dropping the first game of its Zone tournament on Wednesday at Manhattan.
The AAAs left men on second and third in the top of the ninth, leaving a three-run rally just short in an 11-10 loss to the Salina Falcons. As a result, Emporia must win three games in a row, including twice tonight, to win Zone and keep its season alive.
The AAAs trailed 11-7 entering the ninth following a three-run bottom of the eighth for Salina. Zach Schuler and Harrison Stone drew one-out walks for Emporia, and Michael Knight singled to score Schuler. Casey Atchison followed with a double to score both Stone and Knight, pulling Emporia to within a run and putting the AAAs in position to possibly win the game with a base hit.
But the Falcons brought Conner Martin to the mound from shortstop, and Martin responded by getting Henry Ott and Sean Carr on back-to-back strikeouts to preserve the one-run victory.
The previous inning, the AAAs had missed another golden opportunity when they were down by just one. Ott singled, Carr reached on a throwing error, and a passed ball put runners on second and third with no one out. Travis LeMay went down on strikes, and Adam Ewy hit a liner at the third baseman, who made the catch and threw to second to double off Carr.
“I don’t think it deflated us,” AAAs coach Brad Kelly said. “But it was an opportunity that we kind of missed. It was a tough play. It was one of those, it was kind of off the end of the bat, it wasn’t right at him. The third baseman had to take a few steps in and to his right to catch it, and then when he did catch it, Sean was just caught off second a little bit too far, and the third baseman made a good throw and they got him.”
Emporia scored two in the third to take its only lead at 2-1, then later added three in the fifth and two in the seventh. Ewy contributed base hits to the rallies in both the third and fifth innings, finishing 2-for-5. Knight added three hits in five trips to the plate, including two doubles, and Stone and Ott each had a pair of hits.
Schuler pitched the entire game for Emporia, and although the Falcons had 14 hits and 11 runs, Kelly liked what he saw from his starter. Six errors by the AAAs didn’t help the cause.
“I guess at the end of the night, they did have quite a few hits, but he scattered ’em pretty good,” Kelly said. “They weren’t all in a row, and it seems like the other times we’ve played Salina this year, we played with ’em pretty well for the most part, except they always had that one big inning on us where they’d score six or seven runs. Zach did a good job and didn’t really allow that to happen. He was able to get outs when he needed them, and I think he did a good job keeping us in the game.”
Losing is no longer an option for the AAAs, who will play Salina again tonight at 6 p.m. following the Falcons’ 12-11 loss to Manhattan Manko in Wednesday’s later game. If the AAAs win, they’ll play Manhattan at 8 p.m., and must win that one to force another game on Friday for a chance to win the Zone title.
Wednesday at Manhattan
Emporia 002 030 203 — 10 12 6
Salina 102 320 03x — 11 14 4
WP — DeBold. LP — Schuler.
2B — EMP: Knight 2, Atchison; SAL: Martin, Broke. HR — SAL: Vinson.