Senior Gabe Zumbrun is safe at second on the steal attempt. He would later come around to score for the Tigers’ first run of the game.
Drew Terhall | The Daily Advocate
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
FORT RECOVERY — The Ansonia baseball team lost on the road to Fort Recovery, 9-2, on April 8. The Tigers couldn’t come back from the early game deficit they put themselves in.
During the second inning, the defense couldn’t get the team off the field. They had a few errors that Fort Recovery took advantage of and scored five runs in the inning to go up 6-0.
Head coach Dustin Hecht said the errors during the game gave them little to no chance of coming away with the win.
“We weren’t on point. We had five errors. If we have a game and we’re under two errors, we’re playing really good. We have been coming out on top if we have two or less errors. When we have five, we take ourselves out of the game,” Hecht said.
Ansonia had some opportunities early in the game to score some runs, but couldn’t capitalize. Eventually in the fourth inning, junior Treavor Hemmerich drove in senior Gabe Zumbrun to make it a 6-1 game. Zumbrun was in scoring position after stealing second.
Fort Recovery put up two more runs in the fourth to go up 8-1. In the next inning, junior Jakob Creager led off with a single. Senior Nathan Armock helped get Creager to home to cut into the deficit, 8-2.
From there, Fort Recovery scored one more run in the sixth and then shut the door on Ansonia in the seventh.
Ansonia started freshman Noah Heck in the game for his first career start. Hecht said for the four innings he pitched, he didn’t do bad going up against a highly competitive team in Fort Recovery.
“As a freshman coming in, first outing, I liked what I’ve seen out him,” Hecht said.
Heck also flashed the leather and got a double play in the first inning to help limit the damage. He caught a line drive straight at him and he flipped it to first base to get the runner there.
It was a game where a lot didn’t go right for the Tigers. Outside of the defense, the plate approach was a little bit too passive for Hecht. He said they have been better at the plate when they can gain momentum by jumping on pitchers early and swing at first pitch strikes.
In this game, the team was sitting back more than usual and saw a lot of pitches.
“Sometimes when we sit back and we get patient, it ends up coming back to bit us a little bit. We’re more of the attack and get after,” Hecht said.
Ansonia is now 3-2 after this loss. Hecht said they have big stretch of six games coming up where they need to clean up the defensive errors before getting too deep into this week. They start with back to back road trips to Sidney Lehman on April 10 and to Tri-Village on April 11. Both games have a 5 p.m. start.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
