The Manual baseball team suffered their first loss of the season on Tuesday night at the hands of the Saint Xavier Tigers by a score of 11-1. The Crimsons started the season with four straight wins coming against Waggener, Allen County, Grayson County, and Kentucky Country Day.
St. Xavier got off to a hot start, scoring an early run on one Manual error, en route to plating a total of five runs in the first inning. The Tigers managed to earn four hits and the Crimsons committed one error in the opening frame.
The Crimsons looked as though their offense would respond to their opponent’s hot start as Jalen Riley (#3, 10) led off the bottom half of the first inning with a single to left field. Aaron Sary (#32, 11) then followed up by smashing a double just inside the right field line to give Manual two runners in scoring position. A sacrifice fly from Keenan Bilyeu (#23, 12) scored Riley as the Tiger lead was cut to 5-1. The inning ended with a pop fly to right field and a strikeout.
“I think we could’ve been prepared a little better. You know we came out a little flat and made some physical and mental errors that gave them a few runs” said Aaron Sary.
Quick starts have been characteristic of Manual so far this season. The Crimsons scored three runs in the first inning against Waggener and one run in the first against Allen County. The same script was set Tuesday evening but the offense could not sustain the hot start.
St. Xavier on the other hand continued their flaming hot start, scoring two more runs in the top of the second inning. Lukas Motley (#4, 11) replaced Quintin Bynum (#13, 12) on the mound midway through the top half of the second frame. The Tigers scored two in the inning before Motley got two consecutive batters to groundout and pop out, respectively. St. Xavier led 7-1 after two innings.
The Tigers scored four more runs over the next three innings that eventually led to an 11-1 victory by mercy rule (a 10 run lead after five innings). Connor King (#10, 10) made an impressive diving grab in the top half of the third inning to limit St. Xavier to only one run.
Up next the Crimsons travel to Martha Layne Collins High School on Friday at 6:00. On Thursday, March 30 at 6:00 Manual travels to Preston Highway to take on Male in the annual baseball edition of The Old Rivalry.
