Y-D couldn’t hold on to an early lead on Saturday, as the team fell 7-4 to Chatham in the final game at Red Wilson Field during the regular season.
Tyler Pitzer (Mississippi State) made his first start of the summer for Y-D, coming into the game with a league-leading 0.37 ERA in seven stellar appearances out of the bullpen. He quickly retired the side in order in the first inning with some help from an outstanding diving play by Jordan Crossland (Maryland) in left field to lead off the game.
Y-D came out swinging against Gavyn Jones (Oklahoma) in the bottom half of the first when Jayce Tharnish (Kentucky) attacked the first pitch and hit a liner into left field for a base hit.
Tharnish proceeded to wreak some havoc on the basepaths to get Y-D on the board, as he stole second base after a pickoff attempt from Jones and forced a throwing error by Reed Stallman (Mississippi State). Following the error, Tharnish broke for third base, and Jake Hanley (Indiana) made another error trying to throw him out, allowing Tharnish to score and give Y-D a 1-0 lead.
Chatham responded in the second inning when Isaiah Lane (San Diego) delivered with a runner on third base by driving a slider deep enough into center field for a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 1-1. The sac fly marked the first earned run allowed by Pitzer since his first appearance of the summer on June 16, ending a scoreless streak of 25.2 innings.
Dean Carpentier (USC) jumped on a first-pitch fastball from Jones in the bottom of the second and scorched it into the left-center field gap for a double. After advancing to third base on a wild pitch, Carpentier scored when Thomas McAndrews (Fordham) hit a sacrifice fly to give Y-D the lead right back.
Y-D continued to pounce on Jones during the second frame when Nick Costello (UC San Diego) launched a 90 MPH fastball 370 feet to right-center field for a two-run blast to put Y-D ahead 4-1.
“I’ve been putting in the work to just see the ball through the middle,” Costello said. “We were facing a guy who threw a lot of fastballs, and it was about being on time, early and seeing it through the middle.”
After suffering a season-ending injury on Opening Day at UC San Diego this past season, Costello got off to a slow start this summer with two hits in his first 28 at-bats. As the season comes to the homestretch, Costello seems to be finding a groove with his second homer of the year, which marked his second hit in his past three at-bats.
“The first step [coming off injury] was just getting used to being in the batter’s box again,” Costello said. “I think I’m at the point now where I can make adjustments to the swing, and it’s not just about swing decisions.”
Trey Lawrence (Missouri) took the mound for Y-D in the third inning to make his debut with the team and faced some immediate struggles trying to find the strike zone with back-to-back walks. With the bases loaded and one out, Chase Fralick (Auburn) drove a first-pitch changeup off the top of the wall in center field for a long single to move everyone up a station and cut it to 4-2 Y-D.
Following a fourth walk by Lawrence that brought in another run, Noah Bentley (Weatherford) came in from the Y-D bullpen with the bases still loaded. Bentley walked Stallman on five pitches to tie the game at 4-4 but stopped the bleeding by striking out Lane and Trace Mazon (Coastal Carolina).
Both Bentley and Jones settled down on the mound after a hectic first few innings, tossing scoreless fourth and fifth frames. Bentley ran into some trouble in the sixth inning when he hit Mazon and walked Hanley on five pitches to put runners at second and first with no outs. Bentley was able to keep the game tied by getting back-to-back strikeouts and a soft groundout to third base by Daniel Jackson (Georgia). Throughout the first six innings, Chatham was just 1-9 with runners in scoring position.
After a five-pitch sixth inning by Jones, Bentley was relieved by Sean Zaslaw (Bryant) with one out and a runner on first base in the seventh after tossing four strong innings with six strikeouts. Zaslaw proceeded to walk three consecutive hitters with two outs to bring in a run and allow Chatham to take its first lead of the game. The three walks put the tally at a whopping 12 free passes handed out by the Y-D pitching staff.
Costello worked a four-pitch walk to start the bottom of the seventh inning, forcing Chatham to take out Jones and bring in Caleb Freeman (Jacksonville) out of the bullpen. Freeman escaped the inning with the lead, as he got Armando Briseño (Cal State Fullerton) to ground out to third base with runners at second and first.
Y-D threatened against Freeman once again in the eighth inning when a couple of walks and a hit-by-pitch loaded the bases with one out for Costello. Costello made loud contact, but it was a line drive directly to Stallman at first base, who made the catch and dove to tag out Jack Bell (TCU) for a massive inning-ending double play.
With Carpentier on the mound for the second consecutive day, the Anglers added a couple of key insurance runs in the ninth inning when Lane hit an RBI groundout, then Stallman stole third base and scored on a throwing error to give Chatham a 7-4 lead.
Y-D didn’t go away quietly, as Tharnish launched the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth to the wall in left field for a double. After Jack Arcamone (Georgia) hit a single to bring the tying run to the plate with one out, Chatham brought in Christopher Langley (Tyler JC) for the save.
Langley missed the zone with four consecutive pitches to Briseño, which loaded the bases with one out for Crossland. On a 2-2 pitch, Crossland hit a grounder right back to Langley, who started a 1-6-3 double play to cap off the 7-4 Chatham victory. With the loss, Y-D drops to 19-17-3 with one game left to play in the regular season and officially locks itself in as the fourth seed in the East Division.
“It helps just to get all the bad luck out,” Costello said. “Get all the losses out while you can. We’ve already clinched; now it’s just about seeding, so if you throw a couple of losses up there, cool, get them out now, and we roll in the playoffs… It's all positive around here.”
Y-D will look to end the regular season on a high note when it travels to take on Bourne at 6 p.m. on Sunday.
