Miscues come back to bite Pine Grove in Game 1 loss
PEARL – Not much went right for Pine Grove in the first game of the MHSAA Class 1A finals on Wednesday.
The Panthers were plagued by miscues and couldn’t get their bats going in a 6-0 loss to Taylorsville at Trustmark Park. Ford Matthews threw 6 1/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts for the Tartars.
Game 2 is set for Friday at 1 p.m.
“Played bad baseball today,” Pine Grove coach Matt King said. “Didn’t play real clean, mistakes are magnified in big games. We made some big ones today, and they kind of magnified out there.”
Taylorsville (24-12) didn’t manage a hit against Pine Grove (27-11) starter Coy Childs until the fifth inning, but the Tartars pulled in front in the third. A hit batter with the bases loaded gave Taylorsville a run, and a groundout allowed another to score.
The Tartars added another run in the fifth inning, and then Trey Barnes broke the game wide open. With two runners on, Barnes smashed a single through the infield, and the Panthers misplayed it in the outfield. That not only let both runners score, but Barnes was able to round the bases to make it 6-0.
“Coming off the first two at-bats, it felt really good because I knew I could’ve done a lot better,” Barnes said. “But that helped out my team, a three-run, inside-the-park (home run). I know it gave us a little momentum toward the end to finish the game.”
Taylorsville head coach Laine Jordan wasn’t surprised that it was Barnes who came up with a big play for the Tartars.
“We had a little help, but that kid’s been big for us all year,” Jordan said. “So, it’s no surprise that he was up in that situation. He also can fly, so once I saw the outfielder bobble a little bit, I wasn’t slowing him down. I was sending him the whole time.”
It wasn’t pretty for Pine Grove in Game 1, but the Panthers are no strangers to forcing – and winning – Game 3s this postseason.
“It’s an older group, it’s a veteran group, this is a group that’s played three games the last two times through,” King said. “I expect we come up here and we’re going to handle our stuff like men. We’re going to battle with them and get back in it, hopefully.”
Extra Bases
Big Inning: Barnes’ error-aided roundtripper scored three of Taylorsville’s four runs in the fifth inning to pull away.
Big Stat: Taylorsville scored six runs, but it only had two hits.
Coach Speak: “We found a way to get it done when we needed to. When we had runners on, we found a way to scratch. It wasn’t always pretty, but we found a way to scratch and get it done.” – Jordan
