Big fifth dooms Lions in regional
WEST LAFAYETTE – What started as a pitchers battle, became a battle for survival as Bremen’s Lions couldn’t survive some costly mistakes falling to Delphi in regional action 10-2.
Bremen starter Evan Lopez was sharp from the start and breezed through a one, two, three first inning helped by a perfect strike to second by catcher Zach Roush to cut down Chase Long trying to steal after he was hit by a pitch with two out.
Delphi starter Keigan Watt had a rougher go with a similar result, as he walked Reece Greene and Taylor Orcutt but picked them both off at first base giving himself a matching one, two, three first inning.
“We kind of shot ourselves early with a couple of pick-offs in the first inning when we could have had our number four hitter (Silas Laidig) our best hitter at the plate with two guys on,” said Bremen head coach Ryan Carpenter. “Instead we had two outs and we are out of the inning. We did a lot of little things that caught up to us, they compounded, and kudos to them they took advantage of it.”
Watt would recover to retire the next seven Lions in order but left in the fourth after walking a pair of hitters. Watt left the game with a no-hitter.
Meanwhile, Lopez sailed into the third but a one-out triple by the number eight hitter Dakota Titus, followed by a double off the bat of Brent Huffman pushed across the first Delphi run followed by a second run on a throwing error.
The Oracles pushed across another in the fourth taking advantage of a balk, but it was the fifth that would be the undoing of the Lions.
Delphi was able to plate four runs in the inning, helped by a couple of costly Lion errors to give the Oracles a lead that Bremen could never recover from.
Meanwhile, Watt gave way to reliever Brock Burton who had some scary moments, including a two-run Bremen third, with the Lions helped by the game’s second balk.
A steady diet of off-speed and breaking balls by both Delphi pitchers kept the Lions off balance for most of the day.
“In our conference, we are used to a steady diet of mid to upper 80’s fastballs and they came in and threw a bunch of offspeed at us for strikes,” said Carpenter. “We had a hard time timing it up we didn’t have great approaches.”
Bremen would have just one more baserunner after the fifth, a sixth-inning walk to Aden Hunziker, as the veteran Oracles settled in to close out the win.
“You could tell the experience level with them,” said Carpenter of Delphi in their fourth straight regional appearance. “We were a little shell-shocked in that inning (fifth) and never really bounced back. We showed glimpses but we never really could take advantage.”
The Lions end their season at 11-15 with a sectional championship.
*DELPHI 10, BREMEN 2
at Loeb Stadium
Delphi 0 0 2 1 4 1 2 10-10-1
Bremen 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2-2-4
WP – Watt. LP – Lopez. 3B – Titus (D). 2B – Huffman (D).
