GAINESVILLE — After Winder-Barrow’s loss to Lanier on Monday night, the Gainesville baseball team came into Tuesday’s showdown against last-place Apalachee with a chance to take control in Region 8-6A.
Gainesville and Winder-Barrow entered the final week of the regular season tied for the region lead. But the Red Elephants needed some help with the Bulldoggs holding the head-to-head tiebreaker. They got it from the Longhorns.
But they couldn’t take advantage, at least for now.
The Wildcats staged a seventh inning comeback to deal the Red Elephants a blow of their own in a frustrating 3-2 loss at Ivey-Watson Field.
Gainesville (18-8, 9-4 Region 8-6A) had at least one baserunner in every inning but the seventh, stranded five, four in scoring position, and was just 1-for-9 with RISP for the game.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats (15-11, 4-9) went 2-for-3 with RISP in the top of the seventh alone getting a pair of RBI singles to erase a 2-1 deficit and snatch the victory out of the hands of the Red Elephants.
It was enough to leave Gainesville coach Jeremy Kemp with a blank stare in the outfield afterwards.
“Too many mistakes, just too many mistakes,” he said. “We had passed balls and couldn’t get the big hit. Bottom line is we just didn’t get it done.”
It was a pitching duel throughout as Gainesville’s Collier Scott stymied the Wildcats for six innings yielding just one unearned run on two hits and fanning 11. Apalachee’s Hunter Parks was equally tough allowing just two runs, only one earned, on five hits in his six innings and he struck out five.
After both pitchers breezed through the first, Apalachee grabbed the first lead at 1-0 when Hunter Linhart reached on an error and then scored on a hit by Alex Cook. Cook, however, was gunned down on the play. After advancing to second on another Red Elephants error, Cook tried to stretch it to third but was thrown out by Gainesville catcher Jared Smith.
The Red Elephants finally broke through against Parks getting two runs on a pair hits and a big Apalachee error to grab the lead in the third. Ryan White opened the inning with a single and moved to third when Banks Griffith reached on a an error. White was gunned down at home on a fielder’s choice by Scott. One batter later Jared Smith knocked in Griffith on a single to center and Scott scored on a sacrifice fly by Charlie Wall.
Scott was able to keep the lead for the Red Elephants by wiggling out of a fourth inning jam with striking out DJ Smith and Cook to end inning with runners at first and third. Scott dominated into the seventh inning retiring nine straight and 14 of 16 Wildcats batters with 11 strikeouts.
Gainesville was poised to break it open in the sixth, though, as Jackson Kemp singled to start the inning and stole second. But after a Parks strikeout of Cale Conley, Dalton Kyle flew out to center and courtesy-runner Grady Vardeman was gunned down trying to advance to third to end the threat.
Scott then ran into trouble with two outs to go. DJ Smith beat out an infield hit, moved to third on a pair of passed balls and later scored on a RBI single by Cook against a drawn-in infield. After a Lex Lopez flyout, Cook came in to score on a Jake Hopkins single to give the Wildcats a 3-2 lead.
Cook then came on for Parks to close out the game for Apalachee and got Clay Coffey, White, and Griffith in order to end the game and deal a huge blow to the Red Elephants title aspirations -- for now.
The Red Elephants need Winder-Barrow lose at least one and hope they can win out.
“We can still win this thing,” Kemp said. “But we’re going to have to play a lot more consistently than we have been. We’ve been good in spurts but you need to sustain it this time of year.”
