Baseball Team Loses Close Game In Late Innings Against Rival Catoctin

by Megan Allen

Walkersville High School’s Baseball team played the Catoctin Cougars May 1st. Catoctin won over the Lions with a score of 5-3.

Walkersville was trailing Catoctin 2-0 in the third inning, until junior Jacob Wetzel hit a solo home run, then seniors Riley Grant and Josh Clegg hit a pair of RBI singles to put the Lions in the lead 3-2 going into the sixth inning.

Grant also made a huge play in the sixth inning. He made a long throw to the home plate to stop the tying run from scoring. “At that moment, I thought we had the game in the bag because all the energy was up and the crowd went crazy. We should’ve won that game, and I hope we see them again because we are all confident that we can win,” explained Grant.

Wetzel was forced out of the game in the seventh inning when he threw his 105th pitch, by the new pitch-count restriction put into action at the start of this season. At the time Wetzel was pulled out, the Lions were up 3-2.

Then Catoctin picked the energy up and got multiple hits which sent their players to the home base and secured the win with three runs in the seventh inning.

“I was disappointed we lost because we definitely had the lead and skills to win the game. We are just as good as them and we have a little rivalry between us. We all just really wanted to win,” said Wetzel.

Wetzel felt satisfied with his performance during the game, “I hit a home run and my pitching was pretty good, but it doesn’t matter because if the whole team doesn’t win, there is always something that I could have done better to help our team get a victory. As a whole I thought we did very well.”

Junior Curtis Canterbury agreed with Wetzel on the team’s effort, “I think we played good, but there are definitely things we need to work on before play offs incase we see them again because our whole team definitely doesn’t want to lose three times to them.”

The Lions record is now 11-7 and the Cougars improve their record to 14-4. This match-up has already occurred once this season and with Catoctins comeback this is their second victory over Walkersville. Walkersville will have their next game today, an away game, vs Tuscarora.