Lee-Scott ends Morgan’s title hopes
Published 9:37 pm Thursday, April 28, 2011
Morgan Academy’s John Pomeroy dives back to first base during a pick-off attempt in the Senator’s Game 1 loss to Lee-Scott. The Warriors took both games to advance to the next round of the AISA playoffs. -- Chris Wasson
Morgan came into Thursday in hopes of playing their way to an AISA baseball championship. Unfortunately, they ended the day having to wait one more year.
The Senators were swept at home by Lee-Scott Academy 2-1 and 9-6 during Thursday’s battle.
“I’m proud of the way our guys battled today and this season,” Morgan head coach Bob Taylor said. “We were able to accomplish a couple of our goals this year like making the playoffs and winning the region. We had one more, but that’s baseball.”
Game one was the classic pitcher’s duel between the four seed Warriors and Morgan.
“(Morgan’s) Crawford (Traylor) and (Lee-Scott’s Tucker) Carl had one of the greatest pitcher’s battles I have seen in a long time,” Taylor said. “Both of those guys just fought all game.”
Morgan looked to have a chance in the bottom of the third inning when the Senators loaded the bases with no outs only to see the next two batters strike out and the inning end with a ground ball to shortstop.
“That was the difference,” Taylor said. “You really have to get some runs there and we weren’t able to. That’s on Carl though, he was able to pitch himself out of that.”
The Warriors were able to finally take the zeros off the scoreboard in the top of the seventh. After Lee-Scott took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the sixth, Morgan answered with one of their own when Ethan Fancher drove in Austin Anderson.
In the top of the seventh Jack Folmar doubled for the Warriors and a error on the throw in allowed him to reach third.
Carl immediately followed with a sacrifice fly to right field to give himself the win.
Game two came down to the bottom of the fourth inning.
Trailing 1-0, Lee-Scott would score nine runs off of just two hits and multiple Senator mistakes.
Morgan did its best in the last two innings to close the gap with two runs in the top of the sixth inning and three runs in the top of the seventh, but the rally fell short.
“That’s baseball, you know?” Taylor said. “You have to tip your hat off to Lee-Scott. They made the routine plays today and we didn’t. It’s about as simple as that.
“We have a bunch of young guys and they can use this to learn from. It’s what we have to do.”
