By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

LEWISBURG — The Franklin Monroe baseball team lost a road conference game to Tri-County North, 12-2, on April 16.

The young Jets team went up against a Panthers team that was red hot at the plate this game. Head coach Tyler Zimmerman said TCN played a great game and they put the pressure on his team.

“They (TCN) played great. They made the plays defensively, hit the ball hard, put it in play and put pressure on us. We didn’t respond well. But, they hit the ball great tonight. We didn’t play the defense behind them to back it up,” Zimmerman said.

The Panthers strung together runs throughout the game. They scored in all but one inning.

After going up 1-0 in the first inning, junior Braylen Keener hit a three-run home run to put the Panthers up 4-0 in the second inning. Another run scored in the third gave TCN a 5-0 lead after three innings.

The Jets were able to stay composed and get a run on the board in the top of the fourth inning. Freshman Braden Gilbert hit his second double of the game and junior Josh Armstrong drove him in.

Franklin Monroe had some life after they held TCN scoreless in the fourth inning. But, they couldn’t scratch across any more runs in the fifth inning while TCN went right back to work.

The Panthers scored three more runs in the bottom of the fifth to go up 8-1. Zimmerman said so far this season, the team has struggled to string together quality at bats back to back and score some runs.

Some of the mistakes from the young team show up when they get some runners on base.

“It’s small things. We get that one run, but then we run ourselves out of the inning at the same time. You see the start to improve and then we take that step back,” Zimmerman said.

Sophomore Brandt Filbrun drove in a run to make it 8-2 in the sixth inning. But after that, the Jets couldn’t get another run to score.

Three runs from the Panthers in the sixth inning gave them the run-rule win.

Junior Chase Stebbins had five strikeouts in 4.2 innings pitched. Armstrong had two hits in the game.

Franklin Monroe is 4-5 on the season with a 1-2 WOAC record. They will have another tough game ahead as they will host a solid Newton team on April 18 at 5 p.m.

Zimmerman said they have to put this game behind them and get ready for Newton.

“We got a big game. Newton is a solid squad. If we try to carry this one over, it’s not going to go well for us. We got to put this one behind us and come ready to play Thursday,” Zimmerman said.

After that the Jets will head to Milton Union on April 20 for a double header that will start at 11 a.m.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected].