It's the mistakes that hurt the most

‘Tis the season of graduation and baseball.

 

I had the pleasure of watching a lot of high school baseball this week. Namely NRHEG and JWP. 

 

Both teams are still alive in the section 1A playoff race, which is down to the final four teams: NRHEG, JWP, Southland and Lewiston-Altura. 

 

JWP and Southland remain undefeated and play in the Section Semifinals Saturday at RIverland College in Austin at 11 a.m. The loser will play the winner NRHEG and LA. 

 

NRHEG, seeded 1st of 16 teams, began their tournament run with two wins, defeating the 16-seed 4-1 in the opening round and LA 10-6 before losing to Southland in a nailbiter 6-5. 

 

One bad inning cost the Panthers in their 6-5 loss. The Panthers left a run on the board on a failed attempt to score via sacrifice fly in the third. Some could argue we should not have tried to score on such a short fly ball, especially with it being the first out, but as I watched the play unfold, I thought, from the stands, we should make Southland make the play. They did, and we looked the fools on that play. Hindsight tells me, with that being the first out, we should have not sent the runner. We clawed back, scoring runs multiple times, but came one clutch hit from securing the win. Southland celebrated as if they had won the world series. Good for them. 

 

Many teams would have quit after such a “wind blown out of our sails” type of loss, but not the Panthers. After falling down 5-3 in the first inning, they exploded for 13 runs over the final six innings of the game. One broken bat and a few fiery speeches from coach Marcus Fischer later, the Panthers extended their season by a few days. 

 

JWP, seeded second in the section, sailed to victories in its contests, until Monday when they faced their toughest challenge, 3-seed Blooming Prairie. The Bulldog starting pitcher looked unhittable through three innings. Blossom players were intentionally calling “timeout” in the box seconds before the pitch to try and rattle him. It didn’t work. I left for the Panthers game, across the sporting complex after said third inning, not expecting the Blossoms to manage much against such a strong ace pitcher. I was wrong. 

 

As I walked back from the Panthers game to catch the end of the Bulldog game, JWP walked it off 6-5, coming from behind to earn a trip to the semi-finals. 

 

For the Bulldogs to earn a trip to the state tournament, they will have to win two more games. One Saturday and another Tuesday. If they lose Saturday, they will have to win again on Saturday and twice on Tuesday.

 

For the Panthers, they need to beat LA, again, on Saturday at 11 a.m. in Austin, and then beat the loser of Saturday’s semi-finals and then win twice Tuesday. Watching numerous section tournaments over the past handful of seasons, it is not completely uncommon for the winner of the “elimination” bracket to come from behind and earn a trip to state. 

 

It was great fun to watch close, competitive games. As I often say about high school baseball. It’s often the team which makes fewer mistakes that comes out on top. Baseball is especially punishing, it seems. In the Panthers’ win, Monday, they committed far fewer errors than their competitors. In their loss, all six runs allowed were “unearned” because the Panthers committed three errors before allowing any runs, which all came in the same inning. The runs are “unearned” because the inning should have been over had the defense not made mistakes on routine plays. However, no play is routine at the high school level. Put the ball in play and good things will happen. 

 

My dad tells me, in his more than four decades covering high school sports, he has never had one of his teams qualify for the state baseball tournament. From what I’ve seen, this year may be the first.