Oran baseball rallies as missed opportunities haunt Saxony Lutheran

The Oran baseball team could have let things get out of hand early. Instead, it chipped away and chipped away, rallying from a 6-0 deficit after just one inning to defeat host Saxony Lutheran 8-7 on Monday in Jackson.

The Eagles tied the game at 6 in the top of the fifth before getting the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh. With two outs and an 0-2 count, Preston Hahn was hit by a pitch, stole second base and then scored when Clay Sauceda put the ball in play and it went through the wickets of the second baseman. Two batters later, Layne Johnson slapped a base hit to left field to put his side up 8-6.

The Crusaders got one back in the bottom of the seventh when a one-out throwing error on a pickoff attempt at first put Jakoata Walther at third base, from where he scored on an RBI single from Dustin Lorenz. An error in left field then put Lorenz 90 feet away from home, but Johnson -- who pitched the final five innings in relief -- got his second strikeout in a row to end the game.

"This team, all year long, has never given in, and they're just going to continue to battle," Oran coach Joe Bickings said after his team improved to 8-6. "That's how they are. They're kind of a little crazy team every now and then, but they get up there and battle, battle, battle, and that's all you can ask for.

"After getting in that [6-0] hole, there's still six more innings to play after that, and that's a lot of baseball. A lot of things can happen. My kids went up there and battled. We had plenty of opportunities, we just couldn't cash them in. ... But we're giving ourselves a chance, and that's all you can ask for."

Saxony (10-4) gave itself chances too, and time after time it failed to capitalize. An early 6-0 lead was just the first on a list of missed opportunities, as the home side had 12 hits and stranded 10 runners.

"We get out to that early 6-0 lead and you know Oran is a good team and that's not going to stay there, but ... we weren't shut down," Saxony Lutheran coach Paul Sander said. "We had men all over the bases all day long, and I'm guessing we had more hits than they did. When you get in the situation where you've got first and second and one out, first and third and two outs, every one of those situations today -- until the seventh inning -- we struck out."

During a scoreless five-inning stretch for the Crusaders, they put runners on the corners with one out in the second inning, two on and none out in the third, two on and none out in the sixth and then, ultimately, stranded the tying run at third base in the bottom of the seventh.

"What's perplexing to us as coaches is before those spots we were able to get base runners and get hits and draw walks," Sander said. "We created traffic all day long, but in the key spots we just didn't come through today."

And in the top of the sixth, when Oran took the lead for the first time all game, Saxony Lutheran had two outs and two strikes on Hahn before hitting the batter and then committing an error.

Errors were costly, as well. Although neither side played flawless defense, Saxony was charged with six fielding errors and gave up five unearned runs.

Layne Johnson earned the win on the mound, giving up one unearned run on four hits, striking out 10 and walking none.

"Layne's pretty much our best right now and he hadn't pitched since last Friday. I was trying to give him some rest because we've got some pretty good competition this week," Bickings said. "He came in and pitched a solid game for us and only gave up that one run."

Hahn got the start for Oran, giving up six runs -- four earned -- on eight hits in two innings. He threw a scoreless second inning, but had already thrown 63 pitches by the time he gave up a leadoff single to Andrew Hartmann in the bottom of the third, ending his day on the mound.

Hahn was 1-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs -- he knocked in the tying run and scored the go-ahead mark. Drew Reischman, Cole Priggel and Johnson both had two hits for the Eagles.

Paris Johnson was tagged with the loss for Saxony, giving up two unearned runs on one hit in 2 1/3 relief innings. Tyler Amos threw 4 2/3 innings in the start, responsible for six runs -- three earned -- on nine hits, with three strikeouts and four walks.

Andrew Hartmann paced Saxony Lutheran's offense, going 3-for-4 with a run scored and two RBIs. Nathan Hurst and Jake Wyatt were each 2-for-4 with a run and an RBI, while Lorenz, Amos and Walther each had a pair of hits for the hosts.

The Crusaders jumped out in the first frame as Hurst rapped an RBI double to right field, and Wyatt followed with a run-scoring single to left. Hartmann then came through with two outs, grounding a ball through the hole in the middle to push in two more runners before Walther singled and later scored on an error.

Oran took advantage of a pair of Saxony errors in the top of the third to stifle some of the momentum, as a single, an error and a walk set the table for Reischman to put the ball in play, creating another error to plate a pair. Priggle then came up with a two-out RBI base hit to cut the deficit in half, 6-3. None of the three runs were earned.

The Eagles kept chipping away, scoring twice in the fourth thanks to RBIs from Hahn and Tanner McVay, and then pulling even in the top of the fifth on the back of three hits.

The Crusaders, meanwhile, saw their ability to drive in runs vanish as Layne Johnson kept them at bay, four times ending the inning with a K.

"You want them to keep their hands back and put the ball in play. Today we didn't do that," Sander said. "We lunged at the curveball and didn't make contact in the key spots from the first inning until the sixth or seventh. Even though our kids were resilient and hung in there and had a chance to win it or tie it, we didn't take advantage. If we capitalize in those spots in the second or third or fourth inning, then the game may have been out of hand for them. But they kept hanging around and hanging around and hanging around, and we kept not coming through. In a couple of those key spot we probably could have just gotten a ground ball to the right side and scored a run, but we didn't even put the ball in play."

Oran 030 210 2 -- 8 10 4

Saxony Lutheran 600 000 1 -- 7 12 6

WP -- Layne Johnson. LP -- Paris Johnson. 2B -- Nathan Hurst (SL). Multiple hits -- Oran: Drew Reischman 2-5, Cole Priggel 2-4, L. Johnson 2-4; Saxony Lutheran: Tyler Amos 2-5, Hurst 2-4, Jake Wyatt 2-4, Andrew Hartmann 3-4, Jakoata Walther 2-4.