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Photo by Brett Tennyson -
Photo by Brett Tennyson
Guthrie’s varsity baseballers wrapped up their district play last week with a split against the McGuinness Fighting Irish. The good news is that Guthrie got its first win in district play in three weeks, and they’re set for their regional tournament destination at Elgin.
Guthrie traveled to McGuinness on Monday, where they managed to pull out a late win in a game that turned into a pitchers’ duel.
After getting Guthrie three-up-threedown in the first, the Irish jumped out quickly on Guthrie starter Zach Henry, taking advantage of a Bluejay error, a hit batter, and two walks to plate a run. That 1-0 total would hold up until late, as both teams locked down their pitching and defense to keep the other team off the board.
Finally, though, Guthrie came through in the top of the 6th inning. Carson Wilder led off with a strikeout, but Zach Henry took a walk, then was moved into scoring position when Josh Dement’s sac bunt got him to second base. The Irish gave Luke Hubbard an intentional pass, putting two men on for Guthrie with only one out. Eli Plagg then came up for the Jays and drove a hard grounder through the right side to bring home Henry and tie the score. Then Jace Rainwater came up with a single to center that scored Carpenter, courtesy runner for Hubbard. Guthrie finished off their scoring on Jackson Walters’ double to left that scored Plagg. McGuinness then got out of the inning but Guthrie had the 3-1 lead.
Nothing else happened until the Irish came up in the bottom of the 7th for their last chance, and scored a run on a single and an error that scored Beau Law, but Luke Hubbard closed out the win when he got Maddox Cotton to fly out to Walters in center. The combined effort of Hubbard and Zach Henry saw the dynamic duo give up only 5 hits and 2 runs, with 9 total strikeouts (8 by Henry) and 6 walks. Hubbard’s line was particularly impressive: one hit, one run, and no walks, with one strikeout in 2-⅓ innings. This was the kind of pitching effort the team has gotten used to seeing from their two aces Tuesday’s game at Squires Field was postponed, but Guthrie and McGuinness managed to get it in on Friday by borrowing the field at Cashion. Guthrie had hurler Owen Wilder in for the start, in one of his biggest games of the season. Wilder hadn’t seen the mound since his one inning of relief at Carl Albert on April 18, and it looked as if his long layoff might have affected his work. He gave up seven of McGuinness’ nine total runs, on six hits, three walks, and two hit batters, before being replaced by Luke Hubbard in the 5th inning, and by the time the game reached the 6th inning, the Irish had pulled out to a 8-0 lead. Guthrie tried their regular late-charge pattern, scoring two runs each in their halves of the 6th and 7th innings, but just couldn’t dig out of the deep hole they were in, and took the 9-4 loss.
On the positive side, seniors Willie Clymer and Josh Dement continued their consistent workmanlike pace at the plate; Clymer was 2-for-4 with two RBIs, and Dement was also 2-for-4 and scored a run.
With all district play now complete, Guthrie played Kingfisher on Monday at home for their final tune-up before heading down to Elgin.
In spite of the team’s struggles the past few weeks, head coach Terry Bennett feels good going into the tournament this week: “I’m excited about our opportunity,” he said. “Elgin is a really good team that doesn’t beat themselves. Altus is a good team that we are familiar with, and we will have to play well against them in the first game. This time of year is when we need to play our best baseball and if we do that I think we have a chance.”
At the Elgin Regional, the Jays will play Altus at 1:30pm on Thursday. If they win, they’ll play the winner of Elgin-vs-Southeast at 4:00pm, immediately after their first game. If they lose to Altus, they’ll play the Elgin-vs-Southeast loser at 6:30pm.