Big inning dooms Crown Point

June 15, 2008 04:00 am

— BINGHAMTON -- The Crown Point baseball team picked a really bad time to have a really bad inning.
Rome Catholic scored nine runs in the top of the fourth inning Saturday to hand the mistake-prone Panthers their first loss of the season -- 13-4 in the NYSPHSAA Class D Final Four semifinals.
The game was tied, 2-all, after three innings before Rome Catholic erupted an inning later.
"It was a 2-2 game and we were right there," said Crown Point coach Eric Mullen.
"But, we started the inning with an error and then had a 40-minute delay because of lightning. "When the game started up again, we got the first batter out and walked the next one.
"We then had a doubleplay grounder that would have gotten us out of the inning. But, we misplayed the ball and the wheels came off. We made three more errors after that and they had three good hits as well."
The Section VII champions (20-1) came back with two in the bottom of the inning, but that would be as close as they would get, at 11-4.
"We were able to get two of the runs back, but we were just too far behind," Mullen said. "Then, they played good defense and were able to make some nice plays."
The Section III champions (21-4) finished it off with two runs in the seventh.
Rome Catholic held only an 11-9 advantage in base hits.
A big key, however, was on defense where Rome Catholic played errorless ball while the usually-reliable Panthers were guilty of eight errors.
"Rome Catholic is a good team and it was a bad day for us," Mullen said.
Travis Tabor was a standout at the plate for the Panthers as he went three-for-three, including a double and two RBI. Adam Clark also had three hits, with a double among them, and Mac Kiley chipped in with two hits.
Jacob Spring pitched into the fourth inning in taking the loss and Justin Potter finished up. Jacob Ross went the distance in getting the win.
"We had a good run this year," Mullen said. "We wanted to win down here and felt we were good enough to do so.
"The kids were still upbeat after the game. It was quite an accomplishment to get this far and something they can remember forever."
A strong Chapel Field team, from Section IV, then knocked off Rome Catholic, 2-0, later in the day to win the Class D state championship.
--
Rome Catholic 13, Crown Point 4
Rome Catholic 101 900 2 -- 13 11 0
Crown Point 002 200 0 -- 4 9 8
Ross and Swancott. Spring, Potter (4) and T. Tabor. WP- Ross. LP- Spring. 2B- Mellioras (RC), T. Tabor (CP), Clark (CP). 3B- Hedrington (RC).