Emporia commits 7 errors in Legion State opener
The mistakes just kept piling up for the Emporia A-16 Blues on Friday night in the Legion State opener.
Seven errors, two runners picked off, another thrown out trying to go first to third. It all added up to one ugly 4-1 loss to the Wichita Sox, wasting what was otherwise a typically solid pitching performance by Jacob Loucks.
“This was definitely not our Emporia team that we’ve had all year when we’ve won games, and we’ve won games like we want to,” Loucks said. “This is a team that I think just didn’t show up today ready to play.”
The Blues need to solve their problems fast, because one more loss and they’re finished for the tournament. They have to take the long route through the loser’s bracket, needing to win six straight games to win the tournament.
The team that goes through the winner’s bracket needs to win only two straight the next two days to reach Tuesday’s championship. Emporia coach Jerry Cook had it set up just perfectly to take that route.
Cook decided to pitch his ace, Loucks, on Friday and the Blues have usually been at their best this year with Loucks on the mound. He did his part, striking out nine, yielding just two hits and zero earned runs. But the Emporia defense and offense showed the rust of a one-week break between games.
It showed up right away, as three errors in the first led to three Wichita runs.
With one out, Josh Merrill hit a grounder to Loucks, who committed the first error with a high throw to Dusty Maas at second. Loucks struck out the next hitter, which should have ended the inning if not for his error. Instead, Jordan Allenberger hit a two-out single to left that ended up scoring all three runs.
James Rodriguez tried to throw Steven Cantrell out at third, but his throw went long. Matt Fry chased the ball down and tried to get Cantrell at home, but his throw got past catcher Remington Pinick and went in the dugout, allowing Allenberger to come all the way around.
Maas led off the bottom-half of the first with a single and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Fry.
Loucks settled in after the shaky first. Allenberger had the Sox’s only other hit, a leadoff single in the fourth, but Loucks stranded him at first by striking out the next two hitters and getting Jake Latimore to pop out.
The Sox nearly added to their lead in the fifth when Emporia right fielder Thomas Lowe dropped Luke Myer’s lazy fly ball. Loucks tried to pick off Myer and overthrew Nate Flanagin, advancing Myer to second. But Loucks induced a ground ball and another fly ball to Lowe to end the inning.
While the fielding errors were no longer burning the defense, the Emporia offense couldn’t make up any ground.
Brian Keisler reached to lead off the second by getting hit by a pitch, but he was picked off trying to lean toward second.
Maas and Rodriguez hit back-to-back singles in the third, but Rodriguez got caught being aggressive and was thrown out by Allenberger, Wichita’s catcher.
The Blues didn’t threaten again until the sixth. They needed only two runs to tie and had a promising start to the inning with Maas and Rodriguez once again hitting back-to-back singles.
Maas tried to go first to third on Rodriguez’s grounder and Wichita right fielder Zach Dougherty gunned him down at third with a perfect throw.
“More than likely I’m going to send him there,” Cook said. “He’s got the speed. What it takes is the right fielder’s got to make a perfect pickup and a perfect throw and the third baseman’s got to make a great catch and the tag. I’m a betting man in those situations and I just didn’t come out on top on that one.”
The base-running blunder ended up costing the Blues a run. Maas would have scored on Louck’s infield single, but instead the Blues went scoreless.
The Blues had seven hits, but they had only two runners reach third base. The Sox played solid defense behind Keller, who had only one strikeout. Other than Maas, who went 3-for-3, no one hit Keller hard. Three of Emporia’s other four hits were infield singles.
“He located good and really used his off speed well. When we were down in the count, he’d use that and throw us off balance,” Loucks said. “I think he was hittable. We just didn’t have very good at-bats. We were going up there, swinging at first pitch and we weren’t being patient. We’ve got to have better at-bats if we want to stay in this tournament longer.”
The Blues also have to sharpen up their defense. Two more errors in the seventh inning led to another Wichita run.
The seven errors were the most Emporia has committed in a game all season.
“I think it might have been just a lack of preparation,” Loucks said. “We only practiced a couple days this week. I thought when we came in that first inning and we were only down 3-1, I thought if we could just hold them from there.
“But it was just a lack of focus. People were making errors and we were getting down, and it just compounded on one another.”
Emporia plays Nickerson today at noon in the loser’s bracket. Nickerson lost to Manhattan Manko 10-0 on Friday.
If the Blues beat Nickerson, they will play against Sunday at 10 a.m. If they win that game, they’ll play again at 6:30 p.m. for a chance to make Monday’s semifinals.
“We all know what we’re capable of and we start out fresh from here,” Maas said. “If we do what we know we can do, we’ll be fine.”