Batai Lease of Triad follows through on a pitch to the plate during an Ohio Heritage Conference game against West Jefferson Friday. Lease tallied four strikeouts and pitched a complete game during the 3-0 loss. (Journal-Tribune photo by Sam Dillon)
Baseball can be a fickle game.
The Triad Cardinals felt that fickleness during their 3-0 loss to West Jefferson Friday.
Ace pitcher Batai Lease returned to the mound for his second start of the season. He has been limited in his ability to pitch due to an injury.
The senior, though, had a solid outing against the Cardinals’ Ohio Heritage Conference opponent.
He hurled a complete game and kept the Rough Riders in check for six innings.
High school baseball, however, is a seven-inning game and that one inning got away from the Cardinals and led to the loss.
Triad head coach Jon Roberts said having his senior pitcher back really opens up the bullpen.
“With Batai back, it solidifies my one and two spots,” he said. “We have developed a couple of sleeper pitchers, but Batai being back, you can see what he did tonight. He kept it close for us.”
Lease sat the Rough Riders down in order in the opening inning.
Triad was able to pressure early on the base paths when Ayden Spriggs legged out an infield single and took second and third base.
West Jeff pitcher Canyon Schneider pitched his way out of the jam with a strikeout for the final out.
Lease continued to stay hot on the rubber, sitting the Rough Riders down in order in the second inning.
In the bottom half of the inning, Triad once again put pressure on West Jefferson by snagging extra bases when it could.
The aggressive base running put Ryan Gross at third and Blake Boldman at second with only one out.
Schneider once again pitched out of the jam with a pair of punchouts.
Roberts said opportunities were available for his team, but the Cards struggled to execute.
“We left a lot of runners on,” he said. “We tried to stir some stuff up, bunt with two strikes, steal a base when we needed to and tried to force an error.
“We were successful in a couple of them, but it just wasn’t enough.”
The pitching dual continued through the next three innings until Triad once again found itself with a scoring opportunity in the bottom of the sixth.
Jared Spors hit a hard grounder to shortstop.
The West Jefferson shortstop struggled to field the hit.
He made an errant throw to first, giving the Cards a runner on with one out.
Triad called on JC Alexander to run for Spors.
The move paid off as Alexander moved to second base on a steal.
The Cardinals couldn’t bring him home as Schneider threw a couple of groundouts to get out of the late threat.
Roberts said his team just struggled to find solid contact.
“The biggest thing is the guys know they didn’t hit the ball,” he said. “We got our base runners, but we didn’t get that timely hit like we needed.
“We can’t depend on just a handful of guys carrying the team. We’ve got to have contributors.”
Lease went into the seventh inning with four strikeouts and had not yielded a walk.
A wild pitch that found lead-off hitter Cameron Elkins’ thigh put a runner at first. Elkins swiped second and Lease gave up his only walk of the game.
Elkins also took third base, putting runners at the corners.
A sacrifice fly to right field plated the first run of the game.
A single down the third base line scored the Rough Riders’ second.
A third run crossed the plate before the Cardinals could get out of the inning.
Triad had a solid start to the bottom of the seventh when Drew Campbell singled.
He moved to second to put the Cards in scoring position.
Triad, though, couldn’t answer as it hit three fly balls that West Jefferson gloved to hand the Cardinals their fifth loss of the season.
Triad is now 9-5 for the season and is scheduled to return to action today at Marysville.
WJ 000 000 3 3 3 2
THS 000 000 0 0 4 0
WP- Schneider
LP- Lease