Leopards Lose Home Baseball Opener
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La Grange’s Brayden Horton slides back into second on a pickoff attempt Tuesday. He would later score the game-tying run. Photo by Jeff Wick -
Colton Klesel pitches for the Leps Tuesday.
The La Grange baseball team fought back before losing their home opener 9-6 to Rockdale Tuesday in extra innings.
The loss drops the Leps to 1-4 overall.
“This team has shown a lot of toughness already this season,” La Grange head coach Robert Barber said. “It would have ben very easy to fold tonight when Rockdale took the lead but we battled back. This is a group that will fight until the very end.
“We just have to find a way to minimize our mistakes. It seems like when we make one mistake it snowballs on us.”
Sporting their new powder purple uniforms, the Leps led 4-2 before a error-fueled sixth inning gave Rockdale a 6-4 lead.
But La Grange rallied to tie the game. Holdyn Cooper singled to score Braxton Dahse in the bottom of the sixth to cut the lead to one.
Then in the bottom of the seventh the Leps tied the game when Brayden Horton reached on an error, was bunted to second by Brigham Kelly and then scored on a pair of wild pitches. La Grange got the winning run to third in that inning with two out before Rockdale got out of the jam.
Then in the top of the eighth Rockdale pushed across three runs to win it.
“We’re just struggling right now, struggling to hit, trying to find it,” senior Brock Loehr said. “We’ve just gotta cut down on errors, but that’s part of the game.”
La Grange got a pitching strong start from Loehr and two scoreless relief innings from Oliver Gunn before they gave way to Colton Klesel and Horton.
The Leps this season have six seniors – Loehr, Klesel, Horton, Bennett Barber, Brigham Kelly and Austin Roe.
“We’ve got six seniors and most of them play every inning so we do have some leadership there,” Barber said.
The Leps play at the Glen Rose Tournament this weekend.