By Marcus Krum
Staff Writer
@marcuskrum
In a season filled with so much hope, with eyes on a deep run into the playoffs, a series comeback and a playoff run was halted, as the Cowboys baseball team fell 3-2 to Southlake Carroll.
After both teams went down quietly in the first, the Dragons led off the second inning with a triple to center field. Junior starting pitcher Hayden Kettler got two outs, but then allowed a single up the middle to give Southlake Carroll a 1-0 lead.
The Cowboys were retired in order in the bottom of the inning, then in the top of the third inning, after Kettler struck out the first two Dragon hitters, he allowed a two out walk, then left a pitch over the middle of the plate that was hit over the “green monster” in left field to extend Carroll’s lead to 3-0.
“We made one bad pitch, the guy hit it out, and we could never get the three [runs back]. We got two of them back, but we couldn’t get the third run back,” coach Kendall Clark said. “I think if we could have gotten it tied we could have beat them in extra innings, but we just never caught back up.”
After that home run, Kettler’s day on the mound was done. He finished with 2.2 innings pitched, three hits, three earned runs and six strikeouts.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Cowboys took advantage of a double and single to start the inning when sophomore Austin Gross hit an RBI infield single, then senior Daniel Jones drove in a run with a groundout, pulling Coppell to within one run.
Junior pitcher Ray Gaither, who replaced Kettler in the third, was dealing through the sixth inning, when, after allowing two two-out walks, was replaced by senior Jensen Elliot. Gaither finished the game allowing no hits, three walks and striking out three in three innings pitched.
“I knew what was on the line and I knew it could have been my last performance,” Elliot said. “I was hoping it wasn’t, but I just had to recover and not think about the first game and just do my thing.”
After surrendering four runs to the Dragons in game one, Elliot came out of the bullpen ready to go in this one, striking out all four batters he faced. However, the offense only produced one base runner in the final two innings of play, losing the game 3-2.
“This group reminds me of 2007. I was at a different school,” Clark Said. “We made a long run like this, we got beat. It was hard to take the game three loss, but we came back next year and won the state championship.
“This playoff experience is so valuable, and you can only get it by being here, and you can only get this really bad feeling by getting knocked out.”