Athens falls to Montoursville.
By: The Review | Towanda Daily Review | May 28, 2016
2016 NTL and District 4 News
WILLIAMSPORT — The Athens Wildcats dipped into postseason districts baseball as a number one seed.
On Friday night, the highest seed couldn't catch a break.
The Montoursville Warriors exploded for eight runs in the fifth and sixth innings, as the Wildcats fell victim to a rout Friday night in the District IV semifinal round at Bowman Field, ending their season.
"Frankly, we didn't play our best baseball today," said Athens coach Brendon Hitchcock. "It's kind of that simple. We committed too many mistakes throughout the game. Can't continue to do that at this level of the season."
Athens starting pitcher Cody Jennings struggled to be consistent in the strike zone, giving up eight walks in his two innings pitched.
The Warriors cracked open their scoreboard egg right out of the gate. Jennings walked Brycen Mussina and Aiden Plants back-to-back, giving Montoursville first and second with nobody out.
Kevin Fox came to the plate and delivered for the Warriors, hitting a zipping line-drive single to centerfield to score Mussina for a 1-0 advantage.
Owen Keiss grounded out but not before Plants could score, bulking the Warriors lead to 2-0.
Heading into the second inning, Montoursville scored some more. Jennings had an opportunity to throw Gabe Phillips out at the plate, but opted out for the out at first. With the Athens pitcher's miscue, Montoursville went up 3-0.
With the Warriors still up 3-0 going into the bottom of the third inning, Athens caught up.
Joe Horn led off with a floating double to gap in left-center, beating the tag at the bag from Warriors second basemen Bryce Ranck. Cory Stivason followed up with a four-pitch walk to give the Wildcats first and second with no outs.
Ryan Kennedy beat out the throw to first base to collect an infield single and load the bases. Matt Collins walked in a run (Horn) on a 3-2 pitch, cutting Montoursville's lead to 3-1.
Luke Newman just got under the pitch on his swing, but still succeeded with a sacrifice fly to center. The sac fly would score Stivason, whittling Montoursville's lead to one.
"Luke has been a guy — as well as many other guys in the middle — that have been very reliable offensively," said Hitchcock on Newman's effort to keep the offense in the game.
Jennings came through with a walk for himself, scoring Kennedy to tie the game at three.
The tie wouldn't last long. Montoursville slowly but surely steered away from Athens in the late innings, which gave the Wildcats less of an opportunity to catch fire before the comeback door closed.
Despite the season-ending loss, along with the ups and down, Hitchcock believes this season was a good one.
"The season, no doubt, was a great season," said Hitchcock. "It started slow the first eight games of the season, then we really ran the table with the final 10 games and win 10 in a row, which got us to this point in the postseason. We won an NTL championship, which is never easy, and push ourselves to come down here and fight for a district title."
"At the same time, this is the same story we've had the past three years. I challenge the guys to face their tough tasks as a one seed. We've come down as a one seed before, but haven't played our brand of baseball. At this point, my players have to figure out how to respond to this loss and move on to gearing up for next season."
