Y-D was handed its first home loss of the season by Harwich on Sunday, allowing five combined runs in the sixth and seventh innings on its way to a 7-1 defeat.

Harwich entered Sunday’s game as the hottest team on the Cape with a record of 4-0-2 in its previous six games. Meanwhile, Y-D was looking to bounce back from a decisive 10-1 loss to Bourne on Saturday night, where the Y-D pitching staff allowed 11 free baserunners between walks and hit-by-pitches. Self-induced mishaps were costly for Y-D once again on Sunday, surrendering eight walks, throwing four wild pitches and committing two errors.

“We’re out here playing every day, and sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some,” Y-D infielder Cody Miller (East Tennessee State) said. “The way we lost today was not acceptable; we played pretty bad baseball all around.”

The Mariners applied pressure to Y-D's starter Ty Bayer (Kennesaw State) immediately when Bristol Carter (Auburn) crushed a fastball to left field for a solo home run in the second at-bat of the game. After the next three batters reached to load the bases, Bayer was removed from the game after recording just one out.

Tyler Pitzer (Mississippi State) was able to put out the fire coming out of the Y-D bullpen, catching Tanner Marsh (Liberty) looking at a fastball on the outside corner and getting Macon Winslow (Duke) to pop out to keep it a 1-0 game.

Troy Dressler (Wake Forest) held Y-D’s bats silent until the third inning when Miller lined one up the middle for a base hit with one out. Miller was in the leadoff spot for the first time since June 16 and played the role of a facilitator in the third inning, stealing his fifth bag of the year to get into scoring position. With two outs, Chris Hacopian (Texas A&M) hit a fly ball that found grass in right field to score Miller and tie the game up at 1-1.

“I don’t really mind too much where I’m hitting in the order,” Miller said. “Whatever situation the game brings me to, I’ll try to do my best and do what’s best for us to win.”

After the leadoff hitter for Harwich reached in the fourth inning, Pitzer buckled down and retired the next three batters with some help from a diving catch in right field by Jayce Tharnish (St. Bonaventure). Dressler responded with an eight-pitch 1-2-3 inning in the bottom half of the fourth, making it the longest appearance of his collegiate or summer season.

Like Dressler, Pitzer also recorded his longest outing of the year with 4.2 scoreless innings out of the Y-D bullpen. Pitzer allowed only one hit and struck out four hitters in the dominant performance, lowering his season ERA to 0.75.

Harwich struck in the sixth inning by scoring two runs without recording a single hit during the frame. A couple of walks and a hit-by-pitch by Ryan Renfore (Kennesaw State) loaded the bases with two outs, which caused Rodney Pena (Weatherford College) to come in from the bullpen to make his Y-D debut.

The first pitch that Pena threw was a breaking ball in the dirt that snuck past Garrett Wright (Tennessee) behind the plate, bringing in a run to make it 2-1 Harwich. After a five-pitch walk to reload the bases, another wild pitch in the next at-bat put the Mariners up 3-1. Pena stopped the bleeding by getting Maddox Molony (Oregon) to chase a breaking ball for a strikeout.

After Christian Rodriguez (Florida) retired Y-D in order in the bottom of the sixth inning, Harwich continued to add on in the seventh when Marsh hit a liner into right-center field for an RBI single to make it 4-1. The Mariners began to pull away by scoring two more runs in the inning on an error by Dean Carpentier (USC) at first base and a run-scoring hit by Jake Koonin (Princeton) to go up 6-1.

The Mariners tacked on one more insurance run in the eighth inning thanks to a sacrifice fly by Molony. Rodriguez and Tazwell Butler (Kansas State) were lights-out in relief for Harwich, allowing just two hits in four shutout innings, as the Mariners cruised to a 7-1 victory.

With the loss, Y-D drops to 11-6-2 and now holds just a one-point advantage over Harwich for first place in the East Division. Y-D entered this week with all the momentum in the world, riding a nine-game winning streak and leading the Mariners by eight points in the standings. Following a 1-4-1 week, Y-D enters an off day with its division lead down to the slimmest of margins.

“I think this reset day could be big for us,” Miller said. “We’ll look at it that way and see how we come back on Tuesday.”

Following the off day on Monday, Y-D will travel to play Chatham at 7 p.m. on Tuesday to try and snap its recent skid.