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Piqua's Derrick Gullett gets into third before Wave third baseman Tyler
Netzley can apply the tag.
Piqua won the GWOC contest, 12-4. CNO Photo
by Dylan Knoop
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Piqua uses big
inning to top Greenville
By George Starks
GREENVILLE- With Greenville holding a 4-2 lead, Piqua sent 10 to the
plate in the fourth inning, scoring six, leading the Indians to a 12-4
baseball victory at Sater Diamonds Tuesday.
Coming off a 3-0 loss to the Tribe Monday at Piqua, the Wave couldn’t
play the same defense on this night.
Plagued by three errors on the night, Greenville was unable to play
fundamental baseball as bad fielding and errant throws haunted the Wave.
“This game reflects the way this season has went, one-hundred percent,”
said Greenville coach Eric Blumenstock. “This game is a carbon copy of
the whole season. We should have won the game 4-2 but a couple of plays
and the flood gates opened. It’s been that way all year.”
Trailing 2-1 going to the home half of the third, the Wave took a 4-2
lead when senior Reese Hunt ripped a bases loaded double to left,
scoring all three and giving the Wave a nice two run cushion.
That’s when the wheels fell off the Wave wagon.
After a strike-out of Piqua’s Derrick Hite, pitcher A.J Bowers ran into
his own brand of problems.
Bowers issued a walk to Derrick Jennings then plunked the number nine
hitter, Rupert Delacruz.
Bowers induced the next batter to pop out to second and it looked like
Bowers would pitch out of trouble.
Piqua would then send six more to the plate with five reaching a six
scoring to open up a commanding 10-4 advantage.
“A.J. is 0-3 right now with like a .096 ERA,” said Blumenstock. “He’s
not getting a lot of help. Tonight we actually came out and got a
clutch hit and I thought we were going to finally break out. We made an
error on defense coming back out and it’s all about doing the little
thing right. The scored six runs with two outs. You can’t do that. I
try to tell these guys every day that you play one play at a time. You
have to flush it down the toilet when you make a mistake.”
If booting the ball and bad throws wasn’t enough, Greenville, on a
couple of occasions, took a call third strike.
“We are getting better at that,” Blumenstock pointed out. “We are
getting more aggressive and most of those are curve balls that we’re
looking at with two strikes.”
Greenville had one more gasp at pulling out a win in the sixth.
With bases loaded and one out, number nine hitter Bradon York tapped
one back to the mound.
Piqua pitcher Michael Anderson promptly fielded the ball and getting
the force at the plate. Catcher Austin Davis wielded and
threw to first for the double play, killing a possible Wave rally.
“Like I said before, tonight was a carbon copy of the season,” said
Blumenstock. “This is the kind of thing we’ve done all season. When you
get on a losing streak like this, it’s tough to get out of it.”
Now 1-11 on the season and still looking for its first GWOC win,
Greenville will face Lebanon tonight at Wright State University and
will battle Franklin Monroe Saturday in a double header at F-M.
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