Panthers fall prey to Cavemen in SWC sweep

Published 12:39 pm Sunday, April 21, 2024

South Medford’s baseball team has been looking for answers over the past week to get back in the win column, and it appeared the Panthers may have found some hints toward that late in the first game against Grants Pass on Saturday.

It came in the form of strong defense and energy in the final two innings of the 4-1 defeat to start off the Southwest Conference doubleheader at Harry & David Field.

In the top of the sixth inning, the Panthers (5-11, 2-8 SWC) forced two groundouts and made the strategic decision to intentionally walk Grants Pass catcher Troy Osborne to avoid a potential scoring opportunity. Cooper Mitchell punctuated all of it by catching a deep flyball to right field.

That was followed up by a clutch performance by Panthers pitcher Jake Lewis, maneuvering himself out of a bases-loaded jam in the final inning with a full-count strikeout of Caveman third baseman Evan Valenzuela to keep a clean frame.

“He played great and threw the ball very well,” said South Medford baseball coach Josh Moody. “He competed and battled in some big situations. We really needed to keep that ballgame close and he came up big for us in some key spots.”

With the fortune favoring the Panthers, the sophomore was dialed in to give his team a chance in the final inning.

“Nothing really was going through my head, I just wanted to come back,” said Lewis. “I just wanted to let our boys hit and keep that momentum up and stop them from scoring there. So that was pretty good.”

But to complement those defensive stands, the Panthers know that it needs more focus at the plate to come up with timely hits to keep things going, and that did not happen.

Grants Pass (6-7, 6-3) was led by pitcher Luke Morgan in a complete-game effort with nine strikeouts, allowing five hits and three walks.

Morgan kept the Panthers off balance until late in the game with a mix of fastballs and curveballs.

“We’ve got to tip our hat to (Morgan),” said Moody. “He’s got great stuff and good command and he threw the ball really well. But I was happy to see that my guys were having more quality at-bats as the game went along.”

Kaleb Long had a solid showing at the plate by hitting 2-for-3 with an RBI for South Medford in the opener.

The senior drove a grounder to left field that went off the Valenzuela’s mitt in the bottom of the first inning. The catcher then smacked another hard grounder which hopped over Valenzuela to bring Keegan Painter home in the bottom of the fifth inning.

“He’s been doing a great job,” Moody said of Long, “Offensively, he’s gotten hot here in the last couple of weeks.”

However, any momentum that was made was quickly extinguished by Grants Pass with Jace McGowen and Cole Carnes connecting on a double play for the second time in the opening game. Back in the third inning, the pair found each other for a double play to prevent South Medford from loading the bases.

Osborne was the main source of offense for Grants Pass with a RBI double in both the third and fourth innings for back-to-back two-run innings.

After seeing how contagious the hitting was for Grants Pass early in the game, Lewis hopes that the Panthers can match that at the plate after seeing an 11-5 hit disadvantage.

“For our energy to be low and theirs to be high, we just need to swing the bat,” said Lewis. “We can’t watch the shot, that is what gets us.”

“It was a tough loss but our energy was a little low when we came back in the dugout,” he added. “If we had picked that up, we probably would have hit a little more, get our energy up and had a higher chance of winning that game.”

In the second game, South Medford again found itself playing from behind after Grants Pass opened with three runs in the first inning of Game 2.

Another roadblock happened for the Panthers when Austin Glass was hit by Grants Pass pitcher Logan Zavolta in the bottom of the fifth inning. However, it was ruled that Glass leaned in to the pitch and was given his third strike.

Afterwards, Moody was ejected for arguing the call and was later followed by assistant coach Eric Lund and Long. All will have to miss the Panthers’ next game due to OSAA regulations on ejections.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, South Medford junior Evan Rhoden squeaked a grounder just out of reach of a diving Carnes for a two-run single to tie it at 5-all.

Morgan answered with a nasty line-drive single through the middle of the infield to buy enough time for Valenzuela to make it home for the go-ahead run to seal it at 6-5.