Porous defense sinks Sidney in Gering rout

Murphy’s law was in full effect Thursday night at Oregon Trail Park in Gering, as the Post 36 team stole the game from Sidney by a five-inning run rule score of 12-2.

Sidney totaled 10 errors in the five innings.

We didn’t play as a team tonight,” said Sidney center fielder Austin Pile after the loss. “We didn’t deserve to win. We also didn’t deserve to be in this game at all. We’ll bounce back and try again in the McCook tournament.”

“We wanted to see some fight out of them [Sidney] tonight and we didn’t see it tonight at all,” said manager Tim Herrera.

Gering struck early, scoring five runs in the first inning off of senior right-hander Bradey Holtz, who was victimized all evening by porous defense on routine groundballs and pop ups.

The defensive nightmare began on Gering’s first at-bat of the game. Second baseman Nic Bibb hit an innocent looking grounder, but the ball was mishandled and the throw failed to reach first baseman Skyler Arent in time.

Holtz walked the next batter, Austin Reynolds. He would come around to score Gering’s first run on shortstop Nate Ferreyra’s RBI double that sailed over the head of Pile, who could not chase it down in the air. Esai Hernandez followed with an RBI single that scored Ferrerya.

After Nate’s brother Nick Ferreyra’s groundout, Elijah Timblin scorched another double deep to center. Pile took a couple steps in the wrong direction and by then it was too late. The ball rolled to the fence and two Gering runners crossed the plate.

“There was no communication out there in the outfield in the first half of the game” said Pile.

Leading 5-0 in the bottom of the second, Gering tallied another run on Hernandez’ sacrifice fly that scored Reynolds.

The third inning was another five-run explosion for Gering. Sidney committed four consecutive errors to start the inning.

Holtz hung in there for three innings, doing the best he could to get outs and prevent manager Herrera from having to use another pitcher.

But the miscues just kept coming and more Gering runs crossed the plate. By the end of the early-called contest, eight of the nine Gering starters had scored a run.

Holtz, who had worked excessively hard early in the contest, left the after three innings. He ended up allowing just five hits, striking out one and walking two. He surrendered 10 runs but only three were earned against him.

“Just got to take a deep breath and keep throwing strikes and do all you can to get outs,” Holtz said.

But it was only a matter of time before Sidney’s bats started to heat up. Gering righty starter Brent Barge, who had been in control for the first three frames, finally left a few balls over the plate.

Catcher Colton Onstott led off the fourth inning with a hard hit double into the right-center gap. Right fielder Scott Phillips then drove in Onstott with an RBI single. Second baseman Jaden Sears belted a double of his own that almost cleared the fence in center field.

Third baseman Kyle Burton, who pitched a solid game Tuesday in Alliance, plated Phillips with a sacrifice fly to left field. But Barge was able to bear down and stop the bleeding, allowing just two Sidney runs.

“When you’re down by that much, you just want to get one run at a time and climb back in slowly,” said Sears. “Mostly you’re just trying to get the bat on the ball and make something happen.”

To face Gering in the bottom of the fourth, Herrera handed the ball to right-hander Jason Hagerman. He walked pinch hitter Dillon DeMott to lead off the inning, but induced three quick outs to at least momentarily halt the Gering onslaught.

After Sidney hung two runs on him in the fourth, Barge responded with a shutdown inning in the top of the fifth and it was back to work for Hagerman, trying to deny Gering a victory by the 10-run rule.

But another error kicked off the bottom of the inning for Gering. Hernandez, who had been locked in all evening, followed with a double for his third hit of the night. With runners on second and third and nobody out, Hagerman threw a wild pitch that brought in Nate Ferreyra as the 10-run rule winner.

Linescore

Sidney 0 0 0 2 0 - 2

Gering 5 1 5 0 2 - 12

AB R H

Holtz 3 0 0

Pile 3 0 1

Onstott 2 1 1

Phillips 2 1 1

Doty 2 0 1

Sears 2 0 1

Arent 2 0 0

Burton 1 0 1

Wakefield 2 0 0

2B

Onstott, Sears

3B

None

HR

None

RBI

Phillips, Burton

IP H R ER BB K

Holtz 3 5 11 3 3 1

Hagerman 1 1 1 0 1 0