Late-game drama costs Cougars in state tournament

One run kept Jefferson High School’s baseball team from winning their first Regional game at Appalachian Power Park on June 3. The team is pictured here at Jefferson High School, holding their WVSSAC 2022 “AAA” Baseball Sectional Championship plaque. Courtesy photo
SHENANDOAH JUNCTION — One-run baseball games are often harder to forget than they were to play.
Especially when they don’t end favorably.
How many plays might have had a different outcome? How might the score have been changed, should the shoulda, coulda and woulda questions been answered in other ways?
In Jefferson’s 5-4 loss to Charleston-based George Washington High School, there were laundry lists of happenings that could have changed the outcome.
Instead, Jefferson was left with the tattered remains of the last two innings to mull over in the off-season.
Leaving the bases loaded in a 4-4 game in the bottom of the sixth, was only one of the instances in question, for the senior-laden Cougars.
Committing the game’s only error in the top of the seventh, where the late-charging Patriots (winners of 16 of their last 20 games, before being beaten in the state championship game) counted the game-deciding run.
Trying to sacrifice bunt — and seeing the attempt turn into a double play — in the last of the seventh, was still another excruciating moment at spacious Appalachian Power Park.
The early and middle innings of the season-ending loss could become a little hazy in the mind, when compared with the tense happenings of the last two innings.
Being the higher seeded team gave Jefferson the home-team status.
In the sixth, starting pitcher Griffin Horowicz, whose home run had lifted the Cougars into a 3-1 lead, had driven in a game-tying run, making it a 4-4 tie.
Then relief pitcher Sammy Roberts (three innings, one unearned run) was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Ryan Hefner worked Patriot pitcher Isaac McAllister enough to get a full count at three-and-two. McAllister retired Hefner on an infielder roller, to keep the game even, going to the last inning.
A walk to Kam Snyder began the critical George Washington seventh. What followed was another moment on the growing list of “what-ifs” the Cougars were counting. An outfield error made things uncomfortable for Jefferson.
And when Joseph Lively lifted a sacrifice fly to center, the opportunistic Patriots had a 5-4 lead.
The hovering drama was still building, when Kellen Kinsler drew a lead-off walk, to begin the Cougars’ seventh.
But an attempted sacrifice bunt relegated the group of Jefferson rooters into a hushed mass, when it was turned into a 1-6-3 double play.
A single from J.J. Palvinale was followed by a game-ending strikeout, as McAllister earned a pitching win with his four-hit pitching over the last five innings.
The next day, George Washington was victimized by shutout pitching and enough offensive fireworks from Hurricane, in an 11-0 rule-abbreviated win by the Redskins in the state championship game.
Hurricane had bumped Bridgeport, 3-2, in the semifinals. Bridgeport had won seven consecutive state championships — six the Class AA ranks and then last year in its first season as a Class AAA team.
One run. Enough to make anybody pull their hair out . . . if they had any hair left, after earlier dramatic moments.
One run.