By SPENCER BATES
ALLEGANY — The Allegany-Limestone baseball team wasted no time putting itself to the test, facing off against a strong Wellsville side, fresh off a Section 5 title and Far-West Regional appearance, in its season and home-opener.
And for a young Gators side with just four seniors in its ranks, it was a strong test. But according to coach Eric Hemphill, it was one they were not afraid to take on.
“We knew we had to work on some things, we’re still trying to figure out who’s going to go where,” Hemphill said. “The four seniors I have, Caleb (Strade), Collin (Forrest), Vinny (LaBella) and Khyree (Harmon), we kind of know what we’re going to get out of them, but I have zero juniors playing this year, so it’s trying to fill in the rest of those spots and where they’re going to be best. But our league is very tough year-in and year-out, so I’m not going to play a bunch of easy teams. That’s why we welcome Wellsville year-in and year-out.”
A-L struggled with some growing pains both on the mound and at the plate, which all culminated into a 7-2 loss.
On the mound, starting pitcher Strade found a few too many pitches sailing above the strike zone, walking five batters through 3.0 innings. In that time, Wellsville’s offense wasted no time and jumped ahead to a 4-0 lead.
But as much as Strade may have stumbled off the blocks to start the season, Hemphill fully expects him to shake off the rough start as he continues to be a crucial part of the program’s foundation.
“He’s going to be a huge part of it, I mean, he went out today and he battled,” Hemphill said. “We knew we were only going to throw two or three innings apiece, we’re trying to build guys up. He missed up a little bit, but we talked about it. He’s going to get down in the zone. He’s going to be a tough, tough arm for us. We play again Friday and Saturday, so he’ll get one of those games, and I’m sure he’ll be better than he was today.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Vinny LaBella (7) swings at a pitch. LaBella recorded one of the Gators’ four hits in their 7-2 loss to Wellsville. (Spencer Bates)
But the production Hemphill got on the mound was not all negative, coming in for Strade in the fourth inning was Harmon and in his time on the mound, he delivered some good results. And it was his performance that only strengthened Hemphill’s belief that he will be pivotal to the pitching depth of the team this season.
“Khyree did a nice job today in relief, … he’s a transfer we got last year, he can do a lot of different things, so we’re looking for some big innings out of his arm this year,” Hemphill said. “Those four seniors are going to get relied on for their arms. Some of the younger guys can throw some strikes, they’re not going to give us the velocity that the top four do, but they’ll be around the plate, and we’re going to have to use them at times.”
But even with some positive signs starting to come from the mound, the Wellsville lead continued to grow as the Gators struggled to find any offense. Through the first five innings, they only managed to combine for two hits. And as much as Hemphill was encouraging his players to take the bat off their shoulders from the third base line, he understood that it was day one of a new season for an extremely youthful side facing experienced Wellsville pitchers.
“They’re not used to facing arms like that,” Hemphill said. “If you notice where the hits came from, it was the top of the order. Our guys would at least attack the ball up there. They’ve seen this, they’ve been in the trenches before. The bottom guys are a little bit younger, … they’re looking for one pitch, and they’ve got to change that approach a little bit, and we’ll continue to work on that.”
A-L’s first real sign of production at the plate came in the sixth inning, connecting for two hits and scoring its only two runs of the game. An inning that Hemphill anticipates using as a building block in the early goings of the new campaign.
“We didn’t die,” Hemphill said of his team’s fight towards the end of the game. “With youth, it would have been very easy just to make this a 10 run game and go home after five innings. But they didn’t quit, they kept battling, they kept fighting. I gave some guys a chance and they’re trying to do what they can with the best of it and we’ll go from there. We play Friday, Saturday, hopefully we get some of those other guys in and we’ll start to move forward.”
Hemphill will hope for his team to take some big steps toward improvement in the coming days ahead of their home tournament this coming weekend.
