PITSBURG – The Franklin Monroe Jets played well in a 3-2 loss to the visiting New Bremen Cardinals in non-conference baseball action.
“Overall I thought we played a really solid game,” said Franklin Monroe coach, Tyler Zimmerman. “You score only two runs you think you didn’t hit at all but that wasn’t the case today. Have to give hats off to New Bremen. They made a lot of good plays defensively and they played a really solid game. We played well today it just wasn’t quite enough.”
New Bremen took advantage of an unearned run in the top of the second-inning to lead 1-0 after two complete.
“Against a good team like New Bremen the margin of error is so small, one defensive mistake in the first-inning cost a run and that’s the difference right there,” said Zimmerman.
The Jets battled back with a run in the bottom of the third to knot the score at 1-1 where the score would stand through four-innings.
The big defensive play of the game came in the bottom of the fourth when the Jet’s Josh Armstrong crushed a two-out deep shot to centerfield only to be snow coned on a running catch by the Cardinals centerfielder.
“Two outs, had a runner on second,” Coach Armstrong stated. “I thought off the bat there was no way that kid was getting to it. To his credit he got a great jump on the ball and caught it – snow coned it on the end of his glove … that one gets down we take a lead there and who knows what happens but the kid made a great play and it’s just how it falls sometimes in baseball.”
The Cardinals tacked single runs on in the top of the fifth and seventh-innings to lead 3-1 with Franklin Monroe coming to the plate in the bottom of the seventh.
With two outs and no runners on, the Jets battle back to load the bases and scored on a hit batsman to trail 2-1 with bases remaining loaded bringing a Cardinals pitching change that stopped the Franklin Monroe late game rally in coming up one run short.
Cason Yount went the distance on the mound for FM allowing just 1-earned run on 6-hits, 1-walk while striking out six hitters.
“I was very happy with the way our pitcher performed tonight,” Zimmerman said of his senior. “He’s been working out of the bullpen for us most of the year. This was his first opportunity to start and he really took advantage of it. I couldn’t ask more from him. He did a great job.”
Yount led the offense going 2-4; Cade Peters went 1-3 with 2-RBIs and Josh Armstrong, Matthew Hurley, Ty Riffle and Brady Wackler each had a hit for FM.
“There are still some improvements we can make before the tournament but I am happy with the way we have played so far,” Coach Zimmerman said following the game. “We’re a young team, we start a lot of freshmen and sophomores so it’s good to get those guys a lot of experience heading into the tournament.”
“We’re very confident with our pitching so we feel like when we have our top guys on the mound we can compete with anybody and that usually sets up pretty well for the tournament,” he added. “If we can keep the defense solid and keep the bats alive I like our chances.”
FM drops to 7-7 overall on the season and 2-5 in WOAC play.
