Rebels' long day ends with 2 losses

HAGERSTOWN — The South Hagerstown baseball team got tagged with two losses at home Friday.

The Rebels were first defeated 9-7 in their regularly scheduled, non-conference game against the Linganore Lancers.

South then lost the completion of a suspended MVAL Antietam baseball game to the Catoctin Cougars 9-8 in 11 innings.

The Rebels (6-10, 3-9) started the season with a 3-0 record, but since then have gone 3-10.

“We just didn’t make the plays when we had to,” South coach Ralph Stottlemyer said. “We left men on base. We had some throwing errors and they took advantage of them. It’s been tough for the boys. We have just never got into any consistent flow. Everybody was in the same boat. The weather just dictated when you played and when you practiced.”

Linganore (9-6) came from behind to take the lead for good at 7-6 in the top of the sixth inning on a two-run single by Tyler Beckwith for one of his two hits.

The Lancers extended their lead to 9-6 by getting two runs in the top of the seventh on a pair of throwing errors.

The Rebels got one run in the bottom of the seventh when Trevor Haupt scored on a bases-loaded walk to Sean Przywieczerski to reduce the deficit to 9-7. But that would be the Rebels’ only run of the inning.

“It was a hard-fought ballgame between both teams,” Linganore coach Chris O’Connor said. “It wasn’t a pretty ballgame. There were a lot of mistakes, which is uncharacteristic of us. But we fought back. We got some clutch hitting and some heads-up baserunning at the end to sneak one out. We had some pretty timely hitting. Every time they scored a few runs, it seemed like that we would come back and match their runs.”

The winning pitcher was Alex Merriggan. Reliever Zach Davies struck out four in two innings and only allowed one run to get the save for the Lancers.

Luke Toms had two hits and two RBIs, while Riley Stephenson also had two hits for the Rebels. Trevor Haupt scored two runs and Sean Przywieczerski added two RBIs for South.

In the suspended game, play was earlier stopped at Thurmont with South and Catoctin tied at 7-7 after seven innings.

It took four innings to complete that game Friday. Both teams went scoreless in the eighth and ninth innings.

The Rebels got one run in the top of the 10th on a solo homer to left-center by Toms to take an 8-7 lead.

But the Cougars tied the game at 8-8 on an RBI single in the bottom of the 10th and then won the game 9-8 on another RBI single in the bottom of the 11th.

Linganore 9, South Hagerstown 7
Linganore    200    212    2    —    9    8    3
South    112    200    1    —    7    9    2
Merriggan, Davies (6) and Nease. Hess, Ware (6), May (7) and Haupt. WP — Merriggan. LP — Hess. S — Davies.