Head coach Jeremy Richey hopes Thursday’s 5-1 loss to Floyd Central is a good learning experience for his Seymour baseball team on Teacher Appreciation Night at a wet American Legion Field.
“I’m pleased with the effort. I think our guys got a good view of what good teams do,” he said. “They took advantage of some of our situations. We had one error, but there were a couple mental things and a couple things we didn’t execute well enough to get a big out in a big moment. We had a couple pitches that we left up a little bit, and they get two-out hits to score a couple runs.”
The Highlanders (12-5) bunched two hits, a walk and a sacrifice fly to take a 2-0 lead in the top of the third.
With two outs and nobody on base in the bottom of the third, Charlie Longmeier singled, stole second and scored on Bret Perry’s single.
The only other hit the Owls had was a single by Vince Wilson in the fourth inning.
Perry walked in the first inning, Brayden Wilson was hit by a pitch in the sixth, Treyton McCormick was hit by a pitch and Brandon Hubbard was safe on an error in the seventh, and Seymour left five runners on base for the game.
Richey said the Owls need to do a better job of swinging at strikes.
“It’s a little bit about not being aggressive enough,” he said. “We took too many fastballs for strikes early in the count and we got behind, and then they throw curveballs and we swing at curveballs that aren’t strikes, and we’re watching fastballs that are strikes go by.
“We know we’re not going to get a bunch of hits in a game like this. We have to make the hits count. We’ve got to get two-out hits with a runner at second. Bret got one of those today. We’ve got to have more key hits.”
Tristan Pole had RBI singles for the visitors in the third and fifth innings, and the Highlanders collected eight hits off four Seymour pitchers.
McCormick, Aidan Darlage, Perry and Cody Ruble combined to strike out five, walk two and allow eight hits.
“I was pleased with all four of them,” Richey said. “Treyton gets himself in trouble (walk, hit batsman) in the first inning and gets out of it and has a really clean second inning. The plan was to throw him two innings, but he was throwing well, so we give him a little bit there in the third inning.
“Darlage came back and was much better. Perry did a nice job. The error hurt us to give up a couple runs in the sixth inning, and then it was another big outing for Ruble. Cody just keeps getting more and more confident. That was a good game for him tonight against a good opponent. We’ve tried to build him up a little bit before we threw him in a situation like this, and with (four games) next week, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got everybody on deck.”
Despite the loss, Richey complimented his team for being competitive.
“I’m proud of the guys for being competitive,” Richey said. “It’s a big night for us knowing that we drew them in the sectional. It shows our guys that we’re capable of playing with them, and hopefully by (sectional) time, we’re going to be better at it. We’re going to give ourselves a chance to win.”
The Owls drew one walk, had two hit batsmen and struck out eight times.
Seymour (8-6) will travel to Jeffersonville Monday for the first round of the Hoosier Hills Conference Tournament.