BELLVILLE — A pitcher’s duel describes what turned out to be the last game of the season for the Lady Yellow Jackets, who fell to Uniontown Green Bulldogs 3-1 on Thursday.
It is not often a pitcher can notch 22 strikeouts, yield one hit and four walks, and end up on the losing end of the score. But that is what happened to Jocelyn Scarbury, who tossed a great 10 1/3 innings from the circle.
The Jackets took a 1-0 lead in the third inning, a margin they would cling to until the seventh inning when a Uniontown sacrifice fly to deep center field knotted the game at 1.
The score remained tied until a home run over the right field fence gave the Jackets the lead in the top of the 11th inning.
However, the Green Bulldogs scored 3 runs in the bottom half to seal the win and advance to play the Riverside Beavers of Painesville on Saturday.
Following the season-ending loss, Head Coach Ryan Pentz had nothing but praise for his hurler’s performance.
“That is one of the best games I think I have ever seen,” he said.
Jackets’ offense goes quiet
Despite Scarbury’s dominance, the Lady Jackets could not generate enough offense to win.
Just three days after drilling Teays Valley 18-1, the Jackets were able to muster only a single run. The turnaround left Pentz in a quandary.
“We just couldn’t put it together offensively,” he said after Thursday’s loss. “You go from hitting seven home runs and having an offensive explosion to struggling at the plate. But I am really proud of this group.”
Pentz believes that the same type of pitching that carried Scarbury and Jackets all season might have been their undoing.
“Both of the pitchers seemed to have super control, and we had trouble adjusting to that,” the coach said, adding that the Jackets had a difficult time hitting a ball out of the infield.
“We didn’t square anything.”
When Mount Vernon’s Layla Joyner smashed a ball that cleared the left field, the capacity crowd at Clear fork High School held its breath.
However, the ball drifted foul.
Pentz reflected on two base-running plays that might have affected the game’s outcome.
One occurred when a Yellow Jacket was thrown out after drifting too far off of third base on a bunt.
“The bunt was a little too hard, and we didn’t get a good jump off of the bag,” the coach said.
The second play was when Mount Vernon was thrown out attempting to steal second.
A season of resilience
Looking at all of the circumstances when analyzing the two base-running miscues, Pentz said, “You have to put it all together to play.”
However, the coach noted that one very important aspect of the game did not smile on his team.
“I always say you have to have a little luck, too. When you make a run, you have to have a little bit of luck. We go from 18 runs to one run; that is the nature of the game,” Pentz said.
The coach praised the resiliency of his squad over the long haul.
“We have had an incredible run. The second half of the season, we really focused on making a run in the postseason,” he said.
Looking back to early in the season, Pentz knew his team was not going to fold. The only two regular season losses for the Lady Jackets came at the hands of Licking Valley. Both went extra innings.
“After that second Licking Valley loss, it would have been easy for them to tank the season,” Pentz said. “They didn’t. They refocused and made a run.”
Pentz has mixed emotions as he looks to the program’s future.
“We have two four-year lettermen and a three-year letterman, and we hate to lose them. But I am excited about next year. We’ll sit here, we will regroup, and then get it all back together.”
(Photos by Dan Werner.)
