Blue Jays Struggle at Duncan Tourney

Guthrie High’s varsity baseball team struggled at this weekend’s Duncan baseball tournament, losing two of their three games. Both losses came on walk-off plays in the bottom of the last inning.

The tournament started off well enough for Guthrie, as they played the Altus Bulldogs in their first game on Thursday, coming away with the 10-5 win. With the game tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the 6th inning, they launched a 7-run explosion on doubles by Cale Evans and Carson Wilder, as well as two dropped third-strike plays that allowed Zach Henry and Josh Dement to reach first. With an error and three walks added, the Jays raced to a 10-5 lead. In an odd twist, by combining the two dropped third strikes with two more completed strikeouts, Altus pitcher KG Schmidt, who had come on in relief for the Bulldogs, recorded four strikeouts in the inning.

Owen Wilder did the job on the bump and got the win for Guthrie, giving up 7 hits and 5 runs in his 6-⅔ innings of work, with 7 strikeouts and 2 walks. With Wilder struggling a bit late, Brent Ingle came in to get the final out to seal the save.

On Friday night, the Jays came up against the reigning 5A state champion Duncan Demons, still one of the top teams in 5A’s District Two. With Willie Clymer starting for Guthrie, the Demons took a 2-0 lead after three innings. But the Bluejays climbed back with a run in the fourth as Kellen Hirzel’s single drove in Josh Dement, then tied it up in the sixth when Luke Hubbard scored on a hit batter with the bases loaded.

Guthrie then took the lead in the top of the 7th inning, as Cale Evans doubled on the first pitch of the inning to lead off and immediately set up the go-ahead run in scoring position. Hubbard looked to come through in the clutch again, singling on a sharp liner to left that scored Evans from second base to take the 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the inning.

Head Coach Terry Bennett opted to ride Hubbard’s momentum and put him on the mound in relief to pull out the save. Sadly, Hubbard gave up singles to the first two Duncan hitters Bryson Brooksher and Eli Ramirez, then hit Duncan’s Chago Barham to load the bases. Hubbard then walked Blake Barnard to score the tying run, and gave up the walk-off HBP when he hit Jackson Poage, bringing Ramirez home to end the game with a 4-3 loss for Guthrie. Barnard got the win for the Demons, while Hubbard took the loss on his blown save.

Guthrie finished the tournament against 4A contender Marlow on Saturday, and followed their pattern of late-game heroics, but again falling short by a 10-9 final. Trailing 6-4 going into the sixth, the Bluejays scored 4 runs in the sixth to take the 8-6 lead, but gave up 3 in the bottom of the 6th to put Marlow ahead 9-8.

In the 7th inning, Guthrie looked to come back with late clutch play, as Carson Wilder reached first on catcher’s interference, then moved to scoring position on a wild pitch. But Bluejay stalwarts Luke Hubbard and Zach Henry both struck out, and it looked like Wilder might be left stranded, but a Marlow error on Kellen Hirzel’s hit to second base allowed Wilder to score the tying run.

Coach Bennett brought Brent Ingle in to pitch and lock down the Outlaws, and he did so in the bottom of the 7th, going three up and three down and sending the game to extra frames. After a dry 8th inning for Guthrie, though, Ingle gave up three singles in the bottom of the inning, allowing Marlow to score the walk-off run and pull out the late victory.

Perhaps the weekend’s biggest surprise was the unfortunate slump of Luke Hubbard. Hubbard has been a beacon of consistently- high performance both on the mound and at the plate. In this tournament, though, he struggled mightily, going 2-for-11 at the plate with just one run scored and driving home only one run, what looked to be the clutch RBI against Duncan. To counter that, he had the crushing loss in relief against Duncan, with no other time on the mound during the tournament. The Jays have a great team, but they’ll need Hubbard back to his usual form with the Murderers’ Row of arch-foes Piedmont, Carl Albert, and Bishop McGuinness coming up the next three weeks to finish out district play. All four teams are undefeated in district play.

Coach Bennett acknowledged the need for Hubbard, commenting that they were resting him in preparation for the upcoming district push, as well as fellow ace hurler Zach Henry, who didn’t throw a pitch all weekend. Coach Bennett also talked about moving forward after the weekend’s setbacks. “It has been a long two weeks with the Kingfisher tournament, a trip to Guymon, and the Duncan tournament. I’m proud of how the kids fought, we came up short a few times. Now we have to learn from it and get better,” he said.

Guthrie has Piedmont in a home-and-home district matchup this week.