Central blows leads in 7th, suffers 2-game sweep

After dropping Game 1 of a best-of-three quarterfinals series against Auburn 14-1 on Friday at Darnell-Nelson Field, Central needed a couple of things to happen.

It needed the bats to wake up after managing just four hits and one run in the opener. It needed a strong effort on the mound by Game 2 starter Tanner Belcher. And it needed to play a clean baseball game in the field for all seven innings.

The Red Devils got two out of three, and that made all the difference.

Central made a couple of defensive miscues in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 2, allowing Auburn to score three unearned runs and tie the game. In extra innings, the Tigers got the go-ahead run in on a sacrifice fly by Rowdey Jordan, walking off with a 5-4 win in the game and a two-game sweep in the series.

The loss ended Central’s season two rounds short of the ultimate prize and at least one day too early, according to coach Bobby Howard.

“The main thing is we felt like we should be coming back here for Game 3 tomorrow,” he said. “We let one get away from us.”

All year, Howard has lamented the team’s occasional defensive lapses. It proved prophetic as that was, indeed, the difference between a two-game split and the end of the season on Friday.

After getting thumped in the opener, Central came back strong in Game 2, picking up two runs in the second, one in the fourth and one in the fifth to grab a 4-0 lead over the Tigers. Meanwhile, Belcher was doing as he has done all year on the mound — keeping hitters off balance and putting up gooseggs. He held the Tigers scoreless into the sixth inning, making it more than 12 straight shutout innings dating back to the team’s Game 2 win over Smiths Station in area play.

An RBI double by Auburn in the sixth inning to snap that streak looked to be just a minor blip on the radar of an otherwise sterling effort on the mound.

And then the seventh inning happened.

Belcher struck out the first batter on three pitches and hit the second to put one on with one out. It took just three pitches again for him to strike out the third to the plate, putting Central just one out away from forcing a Game 3.

He got within one strike to the next batter, Jordan, before walking him to put two on. Then, a soft ground ball with eyes was fielded deep behind second base by Jackson Cook, but no play could be made.

With two outs and the bases loaded, Austin Triplett reached on an error by shortstop Evan Baber as one run crossed the plate to cut it to 4-2. On the next play, Baber fielded a tough ground ball and rushed the throw to first. The ball went under first baseman Wilson Chandler’s glove to the fence and two runs scored to tie the game.

In the eighth, Auburn loaded the bases and brought a run home on a sacrifice fly to end it.

“The defensive lapses,” Howard said. “We talk all the time about being mentally tough when the game is on the line. We didn’t respond a couple of times there and it cost us.”

The loss ended a promising run for the Red Devils, who had caught fire down the stretch and appeared poised for a deep playoff run. They swept Auburn (in games that counted toward the standings) and Smiths Station, and opened the playoffs with a two-game sweep of Prattville. They outscored the Lions 20-0 in that series.

On Friday, though, the magic came to a screeching halt as Auburn put up 14 runs in a Game 1 victory.

Still, Central made the playoffs for the first time since 2012 and showed plenty of promise for the future.

“Probably so,” Howard said, when asked about the strides the team had made. “We’ll probably see some when we look back on it. But the main thing is we had a chance to go to Game 3 and couldn’t do it.”

This story was originally published May 6, 2016 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Central blows leads in 7th, suffers 2-game sweep."