BASEBALL

Anything happens come tournament time and the top-seeded Forester baseball team learned that firsthand Friday evening at Taylor’s Winterholter Field by suffering a 5-3 loss in extra innings to 8th-seeded Grace College in the opening round of the Crossroads League tournament.

The Lancers (15-25) seem to have HU’s number this year. They were the only team in the league to win the three-game regular season series against Huntington. Tonight’s win ups Grace’s record against HU to 3-1 on the year.

The loss sends the CL regular season champs into the consolation bracket of the tourney. It was the second upset of the day as 7th-seeded Goshen downed Mount Vernon, the No. 2 seed in the tourney, 7-2.

Upset-minded Grace, the home team on the scoreboard, wasted little time establishing a lead by reeling off three straight hits in their opening at bat on the way to touching home three times. The Foresters spent the next two frames evening things up.

Ian McCutcheon cashed in on the first of his three hits in the second to double in his team’s first run with a blast to the left field warning track. Collin Landrum got things rolling for the Foresters in the third when he singled to shallow left, stole second and motored home on Daniel Lichty’s double down the left field line. An RBI-single by Austin Pritchard scored Lichty for a 3-3 tie after three.

Deadlocked at 3s for the next three frames, Huntington finally broke the silence in the seventh thanks to some aggressive base-running by Adrien Perez. While Lichty was beating out his grounder to short, the gutsy Perez made his way from second to third and then snuck home while the Lancers attempted to throw out Lichty for HU’s only lead of the contest at 4-3.

The advantage was short-lived compliments of Houston Haney’s long ball in the bottom of the eighth. Both teams left the potential game-winner on base in the ninth to force an extra inning where the Foresters left another runner stranded, their tenth of the game. But Grace didn’t follow suit this time. Instead they played a little small ball which ended with a well-executed suicide squeeze for the win.

McCutcheon finished 3-for-4 at the plate with an RBI to pace HU offensively. Lichty added two hits and two RBI. Pritchard also collected a pair of base pokes. HU finished with ten hits on the night as did the Lancers.

Mason Shinabery was charged with the loss on the mound. He tossed the final 3.2 innings and gave up three this, two runs and two walks while striking out two.

The Foresters (26-13) will face 4th-seeded IWU tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. in an elimination game.