WHITE HOUSE – With its sectional tournament run over, the Fremont Ross baseball team knows the end of its season is near. Near, but not here yet.
While the Little Giants lost their sectional game at Anthony Wayne, 10-0, in five innings, that doesn’t mean they can’t end the season on a strong foot.
“I told them we have to keep our head up and we still have three games left,” Ross coach Jared King said. “I want to make sure they stay focused. These games may not mean anything in terms of a conference championship or a sectional title anymore, but (we have) to make sure we go out there with focus and to play for pride and send the seniors out on a good note.
“If we can end the year 3-0, I think that could be a good way to send the seniors out. It might not be quite the season we wanted to have, but any positives we can come up with to end the year I think goes a long way to building for the next coming year.”
Wednesday afternoon, Anthony Wayne took an early 2-0 lead in the first inning. Ross stayed close and had a runner in scoring position with two outs in the top of the third inning when the skies opened and the game was interrupted by a 90-minute rain delay.
The break sapped Ross’ momentum. The scoring threat ended and Anthony Wayne scored five runs in the bottom of the third to break the game open.
“I told them during the delay, ‘I’ve been around the game long enough, most of the time when you come out of a delay that long, it’s mostly going to go one of two ways: Either really well or really bad. It depends on how focused in you are.
“Today, once we got back out of that delay, I thought we didn’t handle things as well (as we could have).”
The rain perhaps the had most pronounced effect on pitcher Trey Ickes. The started returned to the game after the delay, but the rhythm of his pitching had been broken. He finished eight runs allowed on eight hits in 3.1 innings pitched with three walks and two strikeouts.
“I thought Trey struggled with leaving the ball over the plate once we came back in, but that’s a tough thing to ask a kid to do,” King said. “Defensively, we were all right. The two errors we had weren’t blatant errors, they were tough plays and we tried to make something happen, like throw on the run and things like that. I wasn’t upset with how we played at all.”
Luke O’Brien had a pair of hits for the Little Giants, while Karson Wojdyla doubled and Caleb Bennison had a base hit.
Ross is not 7-16 overall and travels to Sandusky Perkins Thursday and Findlay on Friday. The Little Giants close out the season Thursday, May 17 at Whitmer.