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Nevada Tigers baseball falls in tournament championship game
By Eric Wade
Daily Mail Sports Editor
CARTHAGE -- "Being down as big as we were, you can kind of see the resolve in the players."
Nevada Tigers head baseball coach Danny Penn hasn't had much opportunity to accurately assess the true depth of his team's resolve very often this season, but that all changed in the championship game of the Bill O'Dell Tournament Saturday afternoon. With just one loss on the season, the Tigers spent the majority of the first five games of 2013 in the lead and really not having to find a way to stay in a game and keep from giving up after falling into a deep hole on the scoreboard.
That wasn't the case Saturday, however, as the Tigers simply couldn't get anything going in a rematch of their only loss before that day against the Tigers of Carthage. Carthage got the bats going early and never looked back, scoring two runs in the top half of the first inning on its way to a 12-1 victory in five innings. That didn't seem to shake the Tigers' attitude, however, which was the biggest positive to come from the day for Penn and his staff.
"We were still up and that was not me making them stay up and stay loud," Penn said. "They were doing it on their own."
In the first meeting between the two squads on March 28, the Tigers had to play from behind throughout the majority of the game, but were still in it right up until the end. Carthage needed eight innings to take the victory in that contest by a final score of 5-4.
Things couldn't have been more different in Saturday's rematch as the Tigers were simply unable to get much of anything going offensively. Carthage, however, was able to get the bats going right from the start, taking a 2-0 lead before the Tigers even came to bat on the heels of three walks by Nevada starter Grant Wolfe.
"We just, coming out, we weren't able to throw strikes," Penn said. "We fell behind early and like we told the guys, we just didn't give ourselves a chance."
Wolfe's day on the mound came to an early end as he left after just an inning and a third, allowing four runs on four hits with six walks and two strikeouts.
"He seemed different," Penn said of his junior starter. "And I don't know if it was just he had too much time to think about throwing today. I think that he may have just been pressing a little bit too hard and trying to make a perfect pitch on every pitch."
As a team, the Tigers struggled throughout most of the day with giving up what Penn called "cheap baserunners." The Tigers finished the day with a total of nine walks and four errors, giving Carthage far more chances to get ahead and stay there than were necessarily earned.
"We've talked before about cheap baserunners and trying to eliminate those," Penn said. "And that's just not something we were able to do today."
Things weren't all bad for the Tigers, though. After Carthage was able to build a seemingly insurmountable lead, Penn got the chance to do a little bit of experimenting that ultimately paid off.
Lucas Denman hasn't seen much playing time this season and has only pitched in the bullpen, but Saturday, he got his first chance of the season to actually get in and pitch in a game and gave Penn a lot about which to be happy.
"We were very happy with how Lucas threw," Penn said. "You never want to give up in a game, but it afforded us an opportunity to see what Lucas could give us on the bump and Lucas threw very well."
On top of solid efforts on the mound from Denman and Taylor Manes, the Tigers were able to see the Carthage pitchers well throughout the duration of the game. Though it didn't translate into a lot of runs or hits, there was no shortage of solid contact from the Tigers' bats.
"We saw the ball well," Penn said. "I guess I'm disappointed just because we talked about not %trying to muscle up today with the wind blowing out, not trying to put the ball in the air. We made good contact, but we put the ball up in the air a little bit too much."
The Tigers were limited to just three hits on the day, but none were bigger than the one delivered by Wolfe -- a second-inning double -- and Manes' third-inning single that knocked in the Tigers' only run of the day.
"I was happy that Grant was able, even though he was struggling on the bump, he didn't let it affect him at the plate," Penn said. "I was happy to see Grant do that."
Despite the struggles of the day, Penn said Saturday's contest is one from which he and his squad can take a lesson.
"You can learn that you have to stay within yourself," he said. "Just not trying to do too much."
The Tigers didn't have to wait long to see if that lesson had been learned as they were scheduled to get right back in action on Monday, heading back out on the road to take on Parsons (Kan.) High School.