Late rally not enough for Pats against Wynne

Late rally not enough for Pats against Wynne

Marion opens 6A- East play on Tuesday against Mountain Home at 4: 30

Sports Editor Wynne held off a late Marion rally to take a thrilling non-conference game, winning 4-3 in 11 innings last Friday afternoon at John Robbins Field.

The Yellowjackets (11-4 overall) got a double from lead-off man Luke Lovell in the top of the 11th before Dustin Semonds chased him home with the game’s eventual gamewinning run with a single.

Marion (2-18 overall, 2-6 7A/6A-East) went down in order in the bottom of the 11th inning to remain winless at home in 2016.

However, the game very nearly did not require extra innings to be decided.

Marion got even with Wynne in the bottom of the seventh when Jackson Wiggins scored Heath Stephenson on a single to knot the score at 3-3 with just one out.

The next two Marion batters reached via a walk and a hitbatsman to load the bases with one out and senior Peyton Moore at the plate.

Moore worked the count full and lofted a fly ball to shallow right field where Wynne’s Brady DeVazier caught the fly with Wiggins tagging.

DeVazier’s throw beat Wiggins to the plate, and the Marion senior tried to evade the tag, but was called out by the home plate umpire. The double play helped Wynne escape to the tenth.

However, Marion fourthyear head coach Daniel Kelley saw the play a little bit differently.

“I saw their catcher try to tag Jackson twice,” Kelley explained. “You wouldn’t try to tag a guy a second time if he got him on the first attempt. That’s just common sense.”

The late rally gave Wynne’s third pitcher of the day, Ryan Spector, the win, while Marion righty Collin Carpenter took the loss. Wynne’s Heath Taylor pitched the 11th inning to notch the save for the ‘Jackets.

The extra innings weren’t the only wild aspect of the contest. The game featured two ties and three lead changes.

Marion broke through first in the home-half of the first when Stephenson and Hayden Hodge reached on a single and a bunt hit. Stephenson would score on a double-steal while Hodge came around on an error for a 2-0 lead after an inning.

That lead held until the fifth as starting pitchers Joel Sargent of Marion and Gavin Stephens from Wynne allowed just four hits from the second inning until the fifth.

Wynne took advantage of a pair of Marion errors and two more hits to plate three runs in the top of the fifth for the visitors’ first lead of the day at 3-2.

“We helped them out too much there,” Kelley said of the fifth.

The 3-2 score was good until the bottom of the seventh when Stephenson reached on a hit-by-pitch before stealing second and moving to third on a ground-out by Hodge.

That’s when Wiggins found a hole on the left side of the field to tied the game, and set up the dramatic conclusion to the seventh.

Carpenter entered for Marion in the eighth and he worked four innings, allowing six hits and just the one earned run.

That earned run came across in the 11th on that lead-off double.

“It’s incredibly hard to work around (a lead-off double) because there are so many ways to move him up,” explained Kelley.

“You can bunt him over, you can hit it to the right side and knock him in.

Wild pitch or passed ball gets him to third. Also, it was their second batter that drove him in, so he was probably already a pretty good hitter.”

Despite the Wynne loss, Marion’s real season begins on Tuesday afternoon. The Pats will host Mountain Home at 4:30 p.m. for their first of six 6A-East conference games. These are the games that will seed Marion, Jonesboro, Searcy and Mountain Home for this season’s Class 6A state tournament.

Last season, Marion finished 4-2 against that pool of teams, and took a No. 2 seed into the state tournament.

The Pats will return a trip to Mountain Home on Friday afternoon.

By Chuck Livingston