← Back to portfolio

LEFT STRANDED

Published on

FREDERICKSBURG —Having to make up for early struggles, Central Columbia couldn’t get the elusive hit that evaded it all afternoon in the PIAA Class 3A baseball quarterfinals.

The Blue Jays had their opportunities, but couldn’t cash in, falling to Lancaster Catholic, 5-3. They finish 18-2. But not without their first District 4 title in 15 seasons and getting a state playoff win to show for it.

Central applied pressure down to the last out. With the top of the order doing its job, they pushed across the game’s last run after Luke Zeisloft singled to start the seventh. He stole second, advanced to third on Trystan Crawford’s infield single, and scored on Cade Davis’ sac-fly to center that advanced Crawford to second. Crawford took third on a wild pitch during Derik Fester’s at-bat that resulted in a walk and the Jays eventually had the tying run in scoring position with Fester swiping second.

The Crusaders got Brody Beaver to strike out to end the game.

“We got the bases loaded or guys in scoring position, but we didn’t get the guys in way too many times,” Central coach Kirk Seesholtz said. “We loaded the bases a few times and didn’t drive guys in, but they did in the first few innings and that’s the difference.”

The Blue Jays loaded the bases in three separate innings — first, third and fourth — and had runners in scoring position seven times. They collected one hit in those opportunities — a single to left by leadoff hitter Luke Zeisloft to score Logan Welkom in the fourth to make it 5-2.

Their offensive woes weren’t helped out any by prolonged innings to start the game defensively, something Seesholtz says could be accredited to a teammate being injured in the batting cage in pregame warmups or just “strange things we haven’t seen all year before it turned into a baseball game we were used to.”

The Crusaders made starting pitcher Crawford throw a lot of pitches in the first two frames, working it to their advantage early. Their No. 2 and No. 3 hitters, Nick Trott and Brandon Wingenroth, worked back-to-back walks, with cleanup hitter Chase Danielson getting plunked to load the bases. Crawford got Will Cranford to rollout to shortstop, but it allowed Trott to score. Still, the Crusaders worked another walk and Crawford’s pitch count up to leave the bases loaded in the opening inning.

They weren’t done there. This time, they got the bats to make some noise after No. 9 hitter Steven Piscano got hit on the hand, the Crusaders loaded the bases again with back-to-back singles by Nathan Wingenroth and Trott. Piscano and Wingenroth scored on consecutive walks to Brandon Wingenroth and Chase Danielson to make it 3-0.

The Crusaders struck their final tallies, and seemingly the back-breaking moment when the ball hit off an infielder’s ankle and rolled into left field, allowing two unearned runs to score.

Crawford finished with five walks, two hit batters, and one strikeout on 56 pitches in two innings.

“I said to them in the outfield after the game that unfortunately this time of year if you have two bad innings, that can be the end of the year. That’s pretty much what it was,” Seesholtz said. “We picked it up after the first couple innings, but couldn’t get the guys in when we needed to.”

“We just gave them too many opportunities early and they took advantage of it,” Seesholtz said. “We just didn’t adjust when we needed to.”

Still, the Jays chipped away, getting the first three hitters on to start the third. Davis rolled into a double play but it did push Central’s first run of the contest across. Seesholtz still saw a lot of good, despite some bad things happening all afternoon — including a hit and potential rally being taken away in the fourth when umps ruled a ball hit off Dylan Groshek’s foot instead of awarding him an infield single that would have put runners at first and second with nobody out to start the frame.

“We were working at-bats the best we could and laying off breaking stuff, especially from the left-hander [Noah Zimmerman]. We swung at a few that maybe we shouldn’t have,” Seesholtz said. “We grinded out the at-bats at much as we could and they either hit us or walked us when we were swinging too much.”

Zimmerman struck out six but allowed 11 Jays to reach base in his four innings pitched to start. He gave up three hits, four walks, and hit four batters.

The Blue Jays, though, got some much-needed relief from Davis to help with the comeback attempt. Having to come in much earlier than Seesholtz would have preferred, the senior was stellar. He allowed just two baserunners via a single and walk and struck out six over the last four innings to keep the Crusaders at bay. He threw 57 pitches.

“I really didn’t want him to come in that early because of how much he threw the other day [in the opening round against Scranton Prep],” Seesholtz said. “We had to bring him in at that point and he did great. We couldn’t have asked anything more from him.”

Despite someone having to come up on the losing end, and it being the Jays on Thursday, Seesholtz doesn’t want the team, especially the seven graduating seniors, to hang their heads considering the fine season they put together. Five of the seniors — Zeisloft, Bierly, Crawford, Davis, and Groshek — started in Thursday’s contest.

“We told them that on the bus ride home we’re not going to hang our heads,” Seesholtz said. “We played as hard and as well as we could. Two bad innings could do it for you, unfortunately, but we’re going to focus on the positives.”

Link to story: https://www.pressenterpriseonl...