GLENVILLE, W.Va. — Less than 24 hours after securing a one-run win in its postseason opener against Tug Valley, Man made the lengthy trip Wednesday to Glenville State’s Sue Morris Sports Complex for a Class A Region IV winner’s bracket matchup with Gilmer County at Kenny Greenlief Field.
The No. 3 seed Hillbillies were unable to carryover any momentum, falling behind by six runs in two innings and forced to play catch-up in what amounted to a 9-3 loss to the second-seeded Titans.
The result moves GCHS (26-5) to within one victory of a berth in the Class A state tournament, while MHS (13-16) is scheduled to play again Friday and will need a victory to avoid elimination and setup another trip to Glenville.
“It provides us with a lot of rest,” Gilmer coach Jacob Wolfe said. “Saturday is the earliest we will play and everybody has seen the potential for bad weather, so it looks like we may not even play again until next week. We’ll have all of our arms ready to go and whoever gets to us will be a little bit worn down arms wise, and they’ll have to beat us twice. It’s hard to beat a team twice.”
The Titans produced the exact start they desired when starting pitcher Kolten Holbert kept the Hillbillies from scoring in the top of the first and then helped his cause with a double in his team’s second at bat that drove in Tyler Ratliff with the first run.
Two batters later, cleanup hitter Roddick Page drove in Holbert to make it 2-0.
Man came undone during the Titans’ four-run second that allowed the home team to take complete control in the early stages.
Following a Brody Beall leadoff single, Lexington Grogg reached on an error, and Seth Stewart had the same result in his at bat after laying down a successful sacrifice bunt, with the second error of the inning allowing Beall to score his team’s third run.
Another successful sacrifice bunt from Tyler Ratliff led to the first out, but also the second run of the inning for a 4-0 GCHS lead.
“There were quality at bats and a willingness to do what our guys were asked to do,” Wolfe said. “The guys did a great job paying attention to small details like bunting down the first base line, stealing bases when we could and taking advantage of mistakes they made.”
Holbert’s second run-scoring double, along with a Jacob Stewart run-scoring single, left the home team with the commanding 6-0 advantage as they struck for six hits in two innings against Hillbillies’ starting pitcher Grayson Sanders.
“I won’t ever take anything away from Gilmer,” Man coach Mike Crosby said. “They’re a good, well-coached team. We had an emotional game last night with TV last night that came down to the end. I thought our guys were ready to go, but some of them were and some of them weren’t and it showed. The early innings killed us.”
Although Sanders kept the Titans off the scoreboard in the third and fourth innings, Man was unable to solve Holbert, who maintained a shutout through five frames despite hitting back-to-back batters in the fifth with two outs.
Pinch-hitter Ashton Hamric made the most of his opportunity in the home half of the fifth by being a double to left that scored Troy Woodford to leave Man with a 7-0 deficit.
Braxton Sword’s single with two outs in the sixth allowed Grayson Sanders to score the visitors’ first run, but that’s all they could mange off Holbert, who allowed three hits and struck out four with a pair of walks in six innings.
“He’s pretty good at mixing it up, locating and that helps him keep people off balance,” Wolfe said.
Run-scoring singles from Holbert and Page in the sixth left the Titans with a 9-1 lead, before Man scored twice off Page in the seventh — first when Landon Cantrell was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and again on Sanders’ sacrifice fly to center.
Gilmer totaled 12 hits, including Holbert’s three and two apiece from Ratliff, Page and Beall.
Sanders suffered the loss after allowing seven runs on 10 hits across 4.2 innings.
“I’m not going to beat them down. We’ve beat some really good teams this year,” Crosby said. “But not all nine were ready to play today. Now we have to try to win the next game and try to come back here twice and win two. It’s one at a time, but if we’re able to, that plaque would mean a whole lot more, because we’d have to climb out of a hole to get it.”