GREENVILLE — Greenville battled to the final outs Monday night, but the Green Wave came up short in a 4-2 Miami Valley League loss to Xenia at Sater Heights Park.
Xenia broke through with a run in the top of the first, then kept Greenville off the board through the first five innings. The Buccaneers added two more runs in the fifth and another in the sixth to build a 4-0 advantage.
The Green Wave answered in the bottom of the sixth to make things interesting. Gibson Steyer started the rally with a one-out single, Ethan Jones was hit by a pitch, and Drew Newland delivered a two-out single to left. Troy Lavy then came through with a two-RBI single to left field, cutting the deficit to 4-2 heading into the seventh.
Greenville could get no closer, despite another gritty effort against an experienced Xenia squad.
“It just seems like we can’t put the whole thing together,” said Greenville coach Chad Henry. “We come out, we battle, we’re really good for five or six innings.”
“Every time something goes wrong, we have a way of making it compound,” Henry said. “We’ve tried a couple of different formulas, we try to do some different things. We had a good pregame, we took good infield.”
Michael Fox took the loss for Greenville in a well-pitched outing. Fox worked 5.2 innings, allowing four runs, three earned, on nine hits while striking out four and walking two. Chilly Jasenski pitched the final 1.1 innings in relief, giving up one hit, walking two, and striking out two.
“Michael threw strikes,” said Henry. “We had decent defense on the right side. We just couldn’t put it together.”
Lavy drove in both Greenville runs from the No. 8 spot in the lineup, finishing 1-for-3 with two RBIs. Steyer and Newland each collected two hits for the Green Wave, who also turned a double play defensively.
Henry said his team continues to show toughness at the plate, even if the results have not always followed.
“If there is one thing you can say about this team this year, they’re a tough out,” said Coach Henry. “The number of quality at-bats we get every time, we’re going up there, we’re seeing four, five, six pitches a lot of times, and if we’re not, we’re hitting the ball hard.”
“It’s a credit to them,” Henry added. “They’re getting themselves in good counts where they can hit the ball hard, and tonight, how many balls were just scorched and right at a fielder, or you see a fielder jump up in the air and catch it as it’s getting ready to go to the wall. We just couldn’t get the balls to fall.”
Henry also pointed to Xenia’s veteran presence as a difference-maker.
“Xenia has eight seniors, so it’s a senior-laden club,” said Coach Henry, “and we hung with them every bit of the way.”
BOX SCORE:
123 456 7 R H E
100 021 0 4 10 0 Xenia
000 002 0 2 5 1 Greenville
