LINDEN — North Montgomery baseball knew it would be in for a fight as they hosted Seeger on Saturday. The Patriots came into the game against the Chargers with a record of 8-2 on the season and North Montgomery was in control for most of the game leading 4-1 through four innings. However Seeger continued to chip away at the lead and made the Charger lead 4-3 after five innings. Needing just three outs to secure a win, Seeger’s offense came alive and scored five runs in the seventh as they would come from behind to defeat the Chargers 8-4.
North Montgomery (9-6) scored all four of their runs in the third inning. Five straight hits by the Chargers was highlighted by doubles from Jarrod Kirsch and Ross Dyson. Outside of that five-hit inning, the Chargers could muster just three hits. Despite the loss Chargers coach Matt Voorhees stayed positive credited the Patriots for their win.
“Seeger is very well coached and that maturity really showed for them today,” Voorhees said. “They have great leadership behind the plate and they just stayed the course and never panicked. In the end they executed where we didn’t and that was the difference. There was still a lot of good things that happened for us today. Corbin I thought pitched well and Ethan Gayler came in and got two hits and scored twice for us. We still have some work to do and that’s what I told the guys afterwards. Some of our guys have gotten comfortable and no one on this team is above the game.”
Gayler and Dyson both had two hits each to lead the Charger offense. Austin Sulc. Brookes Walters, Max Verduin, and Jarrod Kirsch all picked up single hits as North Montgomery tallied eight in the loss. Meadows threw five innings of work on the mound and gave up three earned runs and allowed nine hits while striking out six Patriots. Ross Dyson would take the loss as in just two innings of work he’d give up five runs, three earned while giving up five hits.
Seeger (9-3) pounded out 15 hits in the win and they were led by lead-off man Caleb Edwards who was 4-4 on the day. Christian Holland was 3-4 with three runs scored and Noah Stephen and Matt Taylor each had two hits for the Patriots. Nick Turner led the way for Seeger with three RBI’s.
“We picked the right time to execute really well,” Seeger coach Shawn Turner said. “We had a few base running blunders and offensive mistakes early. North Montgomery took advantage of that and put us in a bad spot. You hope that in late game situations your guys can come through and execute and I’m proud of our guys for doing that. Caleb was on fire all day long and his pitching on the mound wasn’t the reason we were behind early. He was the guy that got off the bus and was ready to play baseball and did a great job.”
With the loss the Chargers have dropped four out of their last five games after an 8-2 start. Despite the rough patch that North Montgomery is going through, Voorhees is remaining optimistic about his team moving forward as they continue their mid-season grind.
“We’re not going to panic about this stretch,” he said. “It’s a non conference game, we went with a different lineup today and it benefited some guys and others it didn’t. I really liked that Ross hit the ball well, Austin Sulc scorched a few balls and sometimes it comes down to a game of inches. We hit a lot of hard balls right at their guys but Seeger was just simply better than we were and took advantage of what we gave them.”
North Montgomery will face another tough Sagamore Conference test this week with a two-game series against the Lebanon Tigers. The Tigers and Chargers both sit at 5-2 in the conference and while Lebanon’s 7-7 record on the season isn’t what it normally is, Voorhees knows his team can’t take this match up lightly.
“I think Lebanon is very comparable to Frankfort,” he said. “We definitely can’t look at their record or stats and think we’ll just win. Every year Lebanon is known to compete and we’re going to have to compete.”
Seeger will return to action on Monday against Covington while the Chargers will have Tuesday’s matchup against the Tigers will be at Lebanon then the Tigers will make the trip to North Montgomery on Wednesday.
