Panthers done in by the long ball

FAIRFIELD - Baseball is a game of opportunities. On Tuesday, No. 6 Fairfield capitalized on those opportunities and Mt. Pleasant did not. Mt. Pleasant had twice as many hits as Fairfield in the game, but lost by seven runs.

The Trojans hit three home runs, two by Kosta Papazogolou and one by Austin Simpson, and Caden Jones escaped trouble inning after inning as Fairfield took the district final 9-2.

Mt. Pleasant was able to get to Jones early, but not for any runs. The Panthers loaded the bases in the first inning and nearly scored when Trace White sent a soft bouncer to the right side, but the throw narrowly beat him to first and the game stayed scoreless.

Papazogolou put Fairfield up on the second pitch of the inning. The senior launched a solo shot to left center and put the Trojans up 1-0 early.

Mt. Pleasant put runners on the corners in the second inning but couldn't score. Fairfield nearly made it 2-0 on a two-out line drive with a runner in scoring position, but Panther short stop Corbin Broeker made a leaping catch to end the second inning.

The Panthers once again showed promise in the third. This time, Mt. Pleasant had two runners on and nobody out, but once again Jones wiggled out of the inning with no Panther runners crossing the plate.

'He just kept battling for us,” said Fairfield head coach Josh Allison. 'Sometimes you don't have your best stuff and you leave it out there as a senior and say, ‘I'm going to put everything out there.' I'm happy with his performance. He battled his rear end off for us.”

Fairfield had another chance stifled in the fourth when Papazogolou was thrown out trying to steal home. He got a good jump on the ball but Panther starter Nik Coble stepped off and gunned him out at the plate.

After a scoreless Panther fourth, Fairfield broke the game open. Austin Simpson led off with a solo homer. The Trojans scored two on an error and Papazogolou hit a three-run shot to left-center that made it 7-0 Trojans.

'I like hitting high pitches,” Papazogolou said after the game. 'Usually I don't miss on the high pitches, so I got one inside and one outside and pulled them both. I've kind of struggled against Coble this year. This is the first day I've hit him.”

Fairfield almost ended it early when a fifth-inning, two-run double by Jones stretched the lead to 9-0, one run away from ending it via the 10-run rule. Jaxon Hoyle, who came in to relieve Coble, was able to get out of the fifth with just two runs scored, but Fairfield had a commanding 9-0 lead after five.

Clayton Lowery was finally able to break through for Mt. Pleasant with a two-run double in the top of the sixth, but that's all Mt. Pleasant would get. The Panthers left 11 runners on base in the loss.

'It's very frustrating, but it's just part of the game,” said Mt. Pleasant head coach Brent Broeker. 'We got the hits when we didn't need them and we didn't get hits when we did. It was nice to put pressure on them every inning, but we couldn't get the big one on them when we needed to.”

Jones gave up two earned runs over six innings to earn the win for Fairfield. Elan Ledger came in to close the game out in a shutout seventh. Fairfield will take on No. 2 Davenport Assumption in the substate final on Wednesday, July 25.

Coble took the loss for Mt. Pleasant, giving up seven runs (two earned) over three and two-thirds innings. Hoyle gave up two earned runs over two and one-third.

Mt. Pleasant ended the season 21-11 overall. They split the conference championship with Fairfield, going 10-4, despite having just three sniors. The Panthers will lose White, Bryce Anderson and Chase Lamm to graduation, but bring back the bulk of the squad next season.

'We were supposed to be .500 in the conference, probably .500 on the season, and we stepped up and won the conference,” said Broeker. 'I'm very proud of them. I'll miss the three seniors that we're losing, but those juniors are baseball kids, so they'll be ready for next year.”