Freshman Ethan Flatter tags the runner and gets the out at home plate to prevent another run from Xenia. After the first three innings, Greenville started to play better defense.
Drew Terhall | The Daily Advocate
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
DAYTON — The Green Wave baseball team took on MVL rivals Xenia at Nischwitz Stadium on the campus of Wright State University in the Reds Futures High School Showcase on April 19. They could not get the win as they fell 7-4.
Xenia took advantage of Greenville’s errors in the second inning and jumped out to a 5-0 lead early. Head coach Adam Eberwein said the coaching staff has been preaching playing clean baseball since February, but the team has been struggling defensively the last few games with errors.
The amount of mistakes have been took much to overcome for Greenville recently.
“That’s just not in baseball, that’s in every single sport that is out there. The team that makes the least amount of mistakes, they’re going to win more times than not. Unfortunately here for us for the past four or five games, we’ve not played clean baseball,” Eberwein said.
After the second inning, Greenville started to make less mistakes and started to make some better defensive plays. They were able to hang around once the defense stepped up.
The bats for Greenville did struggle, but they were still able to get some offense going in the second half of the game. Eberwein said the team did take advantage of a wild pitcher and put the ball in play against him.
In the top of the fifth inning, Greenville managed to get bases loaded with no outs after a few walks and after a runner was safe at first on a ground ball that was ruled an error.
Seniors Hunter Fannin and Avery Ernst stayed calm at the plate and walked in a run. After the top of fifth, it was a 5-2 ballgame. Eberwein said while they were able to get some runs across, he would have liked to see his team scratch more across.
“In that position, we’ve got to be more aggressive at the plate than what we have been. That’s when you got to get your bats alive in that position. We didn’t swing the bat the way we should have in those timely scenarios,” Eberwein said.
Xenia responded with a run in the fifth to make it 6-2. But Greenville started to generate more offense in the sixth. Senior Ricky Heidrich had a RBI and junior Bryce Blumenstock drove in a run on a sacrifice groundout to make it a 6-4 game.
Heidrich also was the pitcher for Greenville and went all six innings. He had three strikeouts and allowed seven hits. Despite some trouble early on, he attacked hitters all game long and helped Greenville stay close to Xenia on the scoreboard.
“Ricky Heidrich pitched a heck of a game. Went the distance and put ourselves in the best possible position to be able to get a win,” Eberwein said.
Xenia tacked on one more run in the sixth before closing the door on Greenville in the seventh. Greenville finished with one hit in the game.
Eberwein said while the team played better in the second half of the game, they need to be more consistent all the way around.
The team did take a step towards improving from their last four games, but there is still more work to be done.
Greenville is now 5-6 (5-4) and will travel to Dixie on April 21 for a non-conference game at 5 p.m.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
