Late rallies not enough for Tigers

By Brad Morris

SportingPumpkin.com

CHILLICOTHE — Circleville battled back to force extra innings on Tuesday, but Minford scored five runs in the ninth inning to claim a 9-4 non-league win at VA Memorial Stadium.

“Honestly, that was the only positive of the night was the way our guys battled back twice to give ourselves a chance,” Circleville coach Brian Bigam said. “I liked that we kept fighting, but we honestly should not have been in that situation if we just executed a little better.

“We struck out nine times and they struck out only once. We made five errors in the field and it was worse when you count the couple of foul balls we didn’t catch. We consistently fell behind hitters and ran up our pitch counts. Offensively, we only had five hits in nine innings. We were fortunate to get some walks and hit batters, but we left a small nation (11) on the bases. It just wasn’t a good game for us.”

Circleville senior Nolan West prepares to tag out a Minford runner trying to steal third base.

The Falcons scored once in the second and again in the sixth to take a 2-0 lead.

Circleville loaded the bases with one out on Angelo Travis being hit by a pitch, Matt Bradley reaching on a fielder’s choice and Nolan West lining a single to right in the seventh.

Travis scored on a wild pitch to put the Tigers on the scoreboard.

After Scott Moats reached on an error by the shortstop, Austin Gray hit a sacrifice fly to right to knock in Bradley with the tying run.

Minford scored twice in the top of the eighth, but the Tigers again responded in the bottom half of the inning.

The Tigers loaded the sacks with no outs on walks to Logan Smith and JD Reuter that were sandwiched around a single to right off the bat of Trent Smith.

Drew Thornsley was then hit by a pitch, which forced in Logan Smith.