A Conner baseball fan pleaded for some scoring Tuesday.
Ryle, however, made sure the wish was not granted. The Raiders converted a two-out, sixth inning error into a 2-0 win in the 33rd District seeding game. The win secured the top spot for the Raiders in the 33rd District tournament in Mid-May.
Not for a second did Ryle coach Joe Aylor think the game would be decided by something powerful.
“We know the type of team (Conner is),” Aylor said. “You’re talking one of the best teams in the state over there, one of the best pitching staffs in the state. So we feel we are right there with them, and we feel like games like this are going to come down to one or two plays.
“We had some chances to get some runs across the board, but the later it got, we knew it was going to be something little to determine the outcome.”
After Conner’s Brody Mangold struck out Tate Cordrey and Landon Sawyer grounded to third to open the sixth, senior second baseman Roman Furuta singled and stole second. Mangold walked TJ Schira and Josh Caudill to load the bases, and Furuta and Schira scored on the error.
It didn’t take Conner coach Brad Arlinghaus long to deduce why his team lost its third straight and fell to 14-4 and 3-2 in the district – blown scoring chances; the Cougars stranded eight.
“We have not been swinging the bats well all season,” Arlinghaus said. “As crazy as this is going to sound, I was glad to see them being aggressive. We swung at some high pitches, some bad pitches.
“… Maybe we were overaggressive in some situations that got us in the hole.”
The Raiders didn’t do a lot better – they left five on base.
Mangold and Ryle’s (12-5, 5-0) Dylan McIntyre took turns befuddling batters. Mangold struck out six, and McIntyre fanned five.
Aylor thought McIntyre struggled early. Between the first and fourth, he hit two Cougars (and three for the game) and walked a third.
“This was not one of his better outings,” Aylor said. “Right around pitch 80, he was able to kind of settle in. Once he’s able to locate fastball and off-speed, he’s pretty dangerous.”
And McIntyre was – he retired seven straight between the fourth and sixth innings on letter-high fastballs in the low to mid-80’s.
“I’ve been getting a lot of swings and misses on fastballs this year,” McIntyre said. “So I was working fastball and then working slider when I have to.”
McIntyre hit Jeffery Vest to open the seventh. After striking out Luke Hubbard, he walked Aaron Wichmann. Hubbard and Wichmann went to second and third on Cory Henson’s sacrifice fly to right – which is where they stayed because McIntyre struck out Cody Henson to end the game.
The Raiders and Cougars complete their series at 5 p.m. Wednesday in Hebron.
CONNER — 000-000-0 – 0-3-2
RYLE 000-002-x – 2-3-0
WP – McIntyre (5-0) LP – Mangold (4-1)