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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels July 20, 2004 Pilots' comeback falls one clutch hit short By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings It's the bottom of the seventh and a 10-all tie has kept Ashland knotted up with North Medford since the top of the fifth. Ashland Pilots Third Baseman Griff Sollinger waits for the throw from catcher Robby Bruce as a South Medford base runner attempts a steal. Sollinger's tag was late, and the Pilots ended up losing to South in Game 1 and tying Game 2. Denise Baratta | Ashland Daily Tidings Ben Morris waits on third; Aaron Decker is inching off second base. There's one out, but all Gus Gavigilo needs to do is make contact. If he can make his way to first, the Pilots would be almost guaranteed to get the one score they needed for the win. It was a ball game. Gavigilo cracks a bunt that bounces foul. Then it's a strike, a ball, another ball the catcher bobbles. Someone yells "Nothing stupid here!" from the bleachers at North Mountain Park as Gavigilo looks for the next pitch. Strike. And that's three. Andrew Del Carlo takes one more warm-up swing, then steps in front of North pitcher Dustin Shipley. Strike, ball, strike. Del Carlo has runners stranded on second and third, two outs and a count he's behind in. Anything hit out of the infield would be more than enough. But Del Carlo hits it high - too high and too short - and that's three outs. The umpire calls the game because of darkness and that's that. A 10-10 tie. "We just couldn't find the last one," Pilots head coach Hank Munn said. "I liked our chances. I think the momentum was really on our side." Before dark The Pilots (2-21-2 overall, 2-18-2 Area 4) didn't start off the doubleheader nearly as well as they finished. Game 1 saw North take a 2-0 lead in the first, bump it up to 3-0 in the third and 8-0 in the fourth. "We're kind of slow starters," Munn said. "I don't know why, but we are." In the bottom of the fifth, Ashland made its first appearance the scoreboard. Del Carlo cracked a three-run double deep into right field with two outs to bring Ashland back into the game at 8-3. But North had guns of its own and used them to ring up four runs in the top of the sixth. So Ashland responded with five runs. Sheldon Cotts scored on a wild pitch. Dylan Steves came home on Decker's hit. Morris scored off of an error that occurred with Tysin Senestaro's hit, then Senestaro scored. Griff Solinger got the fifth run on Del Carlo's single. "We had good pitching in the first game," Bruce said. "If we had the bats in first game that we had in the second, we could have held up." North switched pitchers. The seventh was scoreless and Ashland lost 12-8. Chances, chances In Game 2, the Pilots were poised to score and break the tie - in the bottom of the fifth, bottom of the sixth and bottom of the seventh. In the fifth, Morris was left stranded on third when Senestaro popped one up for the third out. In the sixth, the bases were loaded when Micah Weston knocked out a pop fly and Del Carlo had his own pop in the seventh. Somehow, it just didn't happen. "Usually, we come back in the second game," Pilots catcher Robbie Bruce said. Early in Game 2, Ashland did rally to keep pace with North Medford. North used little singles and strong hitting from the get-go, tallying a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Ashland came back with five runs. Decker, Senestaro, Gavigilo, Decker and Morris all scored off of pitcher Trevor McCleary, though the Pilots only had one hit in the inning. North answered with five runs in the second; Ashland had a pair of scores from Decker and Senestaro. "A couple of their pitchers were really wild," Bruce said. "We did pretty good against them." So two innings into the Game 2 slugfest, North Medford led 8-7. In the third, North tallied another while reserve pitcher Matt Schmesler came in and held Ashland. North got one more run in the fourth to lead 10-7, but Ashland responded with three big scores that knotted the game. Things may have continued like that and Ashland could have built a lead, had it not been for North's Zack James. James caught a fly at the top of the diamond, tagged second to put Bruce out, then threw to first to knock out Solinger. Triple plays are pretty rare and, after James' performance, so were runs. The game went on scoreless until darkness fell. "We did hit better today," Munn said. "We just still can't get all of the clutch hits." Everything else hummed along nicely. "We played pretty good defense, especially in the second game," Munn said. Weston pitched the entire game, following a full game from the mound on Saturday. In three days, he's dealt upwards of 300 pitches. "He threw real well for us," Munn said. "I just have to give him a ton of credit today. I'm real impressed with what he did." But Ashland fell 5-1, 4-1 over the weekend to South Medford and didn't earn a W in Monday's twin bill. "The little things are getting us right now," Munn said. "We're on the verge." DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams