Polk County head baseball coach Ty Stott left the Wolverines’ home field Tuesday night with a rueful look on his face, the feeling a key conference win just slipped through his team’s grasp.
It wasn’t how Stott wanted to start a busy week, for certain.
Owen built a 5-0 lead, then hung on to hand Polk County a 6-4 setback in Western Highlands Conference action at Polk. The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Wolverines (5-6, 3-2).
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The Warhorses scored once in the first and third innings, then opened the large lead with a three-run fourth inning. A bloop single and a walk set the stage for Shawn Chapman, who drilled a two-out double into the left-field corner to drive home two runs. Campbell then scored on a base hit for a 5-0 lead.
“We opened the door and let them score a lot of runs,” Stott said. “I thought we’d play a little better. The story of this game was missed opportunities and what could have beens. This is definitely one we could have won.”
The Wolverines, though, did not go quietly into the beautiful spring evening. Mark Mazzilli opened the bottom of the fourth with a single, and the Wolverines loaded the bases with no outs on walks to Wes Brady and Morgan Groves. Owen pitcher Shawn Clemmer struck out Trevor Arrowood, but Tyler Campbell followed with a line drive to left that scored Mazzilli and Brady. Konner Scruggs then loaded the bases with a single to short left, but Clemmer induced Daniel Painter into a double play that ended the inning, leaving Polk trailing 5-2.
The Wolverines again rallied in the fifth. With one out, J.D. Edwards singled, then moved to second on an errant pickoff throw. After a Mazzilli fly out to center and a wild pitch that moved Edwards to third, Brady cracked a double off the left-field fence to drive home one run. Groves then followed with a single to right-center that drove home Brady and made it a 5-4 game.
At that point, Owen brought in Ben McMahan to pitch, and McMahan got Nathan Collins to end the inning on a bouncer up the middle, forcing Groves at second, then shut down the Wolverines the final two innings.
“Our approach at the plate took a step back,” Stott said. “We’re just not jumping on the fastball. We have to do what other teams are doing to us, when there’s a fastball over the plate we’ve got to tag it. We can’t come up to the plate with runners on and stand there looking at a backwards K (a called third strike). We’ve got to change our approach.”
Campbell had two hits to lead Polk County, which hosts Christ School on Wednesday and then travels to face WHC leader Hendersonville on Thursday. As the Wolverines prepare to finish up their first pass through the conference schedule, Stott feels the season has reached a critical point.
“I told them this is a big momentum time for us,” he said. “We’ve got two tough teams coming up. We can take a step back or we can go out and compete.”
