Chillicothe falls to Jackson in Frontier Athletic Conference bout
CHILLICOTHE − Chillicothe likes to test itself. It entered this season with a young roster, but it also came willing to evaluate itself against a rigorous schedule loaded with difficult opponents both within and outside of the Frontier Athletic Conference.
Throughout the last week, that formula had shown success. Ahead of its home game against Jackson on Monday, Chillicothe had built up a three-game win streak. One came on the road against Logan, and the other two came in the form of solid conference wins over Hillsboro and McClain.
But the Cavaliers slowed down in their home game against the Ironmen on Monday. Despite a solid start, they fell behind and never recovered in an 8-3 loss to the Ironmen at Mt. Logan Field on Monday evening.
"We felt like we left something on the table," Chillicothe coach Tom Barr said. "We've got to perform better against good teams, and we don't play bad teams. If you look at our schedule, it's as competitive as anybody that you'll find. We don't want to beat teams that should be easy to beat. We want to play games like this that are hard, and we've got to step up to win ... We just have to figure out how to flip the switch here."
The Cavaliers had started off strong. Mason Brown led off the first inning with a triple, and he later scored after stealing home to establish an early lead. The Cavaliers loaded two more runners on base during the first, but a fly out to center field and back-to-back strikeouts kept their lead at one run.
That lead held for a time. Jackson managed just two hits and left three runners on base through the first two innings. The Cavaliers went down in order during the second inning, but they still held control. It didn't last, however. Jackson found a groove against starting pitcher Jacob Lemaster, and it piled on six runs in the third inning. By the time Chillicothe found an escape and returned to the plate, Jackson had wrestled away control.
Still, the Cavaliers tried to stem the bleeding. Jack Oyer came to the mound as relief for Lemaster − who ended the game with five strikeouts through three and two-thirds innings − and he found some success. In his three and one-third innings on the mound, Oyer held the Ironmen to just three hits and two runs.
"We're young, and I keep telling our coaches and I keep telling myself that we're going to play like a young team," Chillicothe coach Tom Barr said. "It's another example of us playing like a young team. We have to be able to stop the bleeding quicker, and then really react quicker than what we've been doing in some games."
The Cavaliers attempted a comeback while Lemaster and Oyer pinned the Ironmen down from the mound. Oyer knocked in a run off of a double in the bottom of the sixth, and he scored again after Brown reached first on an error.
Still, the Cavaliers struggled to break through. Despite loading the bases in the sixth inning and getting runners on base in each of the final four innings, the Cavaliers were working against a hefty deficit. They left eight runners on base over the final four innings, and their two runs in the sixth were all they mustered in response.
"Too little, too late," Barr said. "We just talked about with it our guys, because we left way too many guys on base. At one point we had bases loaded and didn't score. It's another good example of being young. We're not going to use that as an excuse, but we just talked about a big time players step up in big time moments. And we didn't do that tonight."
This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Chillicothe falls to Jackson
