By SPENCER BATES
ALLEGANY — Last season, Allegany-Limestone baseball coach Eric Hemphill spoke about how his team needed to show more confidence.
With a number of the team’s veterans last year having graduated, the time to step up to the proverbial plate is now.
The team’s 8-0 loss to Wellsville on March 30 showed that there is still room for improvement in some areas, but in the eyes of Hemphill, the program is on a good path.
The A-L defense allowed Wellsville one baserunner in the first on the back of an error, but worked its way through the inning without any damage being done. Starting pitcher Tayden Margeson got through two-thirds of the second inning before two more fielding errors led to the Lions taking the lead, a mental hurdle that was difficult to work around.
Wellsville put up three runs with two outs on the board in the second frame and tacked on two more in the third before A-L put a stop to the skid.
This is an area in which Hemphill believes an increased level of confidence could help. The Gators are extremely young in a number of key positions defensively and the biggest lesson they are learning is that one mistake cannot lead to more.
“We’re super young. I had a freshman pitching, I had a freshman at second and a freshman at short,” Hemphill said. “Those are three very key positions. We make one mistake and it unravels and they score three. After two innings, it should have been 0-0. We have to get through those (tough stretches), and hopefully in two weeks we don’t make those mistakes. That’s what we’re trying to build here. Baseball is a game of failure. We’re going to make mistakes as young guys against a good team, we just got to keep building off that and getting better.”
Margeson, a freshman, threw for four innings and Dylan Rhodes came in to pitch for the final three. And while the latter may be at a junior standing, both are relatively inexperienced on the bump according to Hemphill. The duo combined for five strikeouts and six walks, and although those numbers were not game-changing, the limited number of free bases they awarded pleased their head coach.
“Tayden is a freshman, he saw the ball very little last year as a pitcher. Dylan’s a junior. This is his third year with me, but he’s pretty much strictly been an outfielder. I thought both of them threw the ball fairly well,” Hemphill said. “They battled. We didn’t walk or hit batters like we tended to last year. We make some of these plays, it’s a 1-0 game against a very good Wellsville team.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Dylan Rhodes (5) chops a hit down the third-base line. (Spencer Bates)
Last year, Hemphill was able to rely on some of his veterans to give him solid innings on the mound. Caleb Strade and Collin Forrest were two of his aces. But both are no longer part of the program, which means he is relying on a younger fleet of arms. However, that does not mean he trusts them any less.
“I have confidence in all of these guys,” Hemphill said. “In two games, we’ve thrown five guys out there, and we’ve been OK. We’ve thrown the ball over the plate, and I keep stressing that we’re gonna rely on defense this year. I don’t have a guy in the rotation that’s gonna go strike out eight or 10 guys. We’re going to get two or three, maybe four, but we got to make plays, and if we make plays, I think we’re good enough to stay in games.”
The A-L offense was kept quiet by Wellsville, connecting for just one hit on the night. But while the team may not have had much to show for it, the connections the Gators were getting at the dish were solid. The Lions’ defense just continued to come up with the plays.
“I think we struck out 10 times in our first game against CSP. Wellsville threw two much better pitchers at us, and we might have had six. Our at-bats were a lot better,” Hemphill said. “Connor Crowley drilled one right at the center fielder and he hit one that hit the pitcher’s glove or his leg. Those are good signs, because those guys got thrown into the fire last year as sophomores and freshmen and eighth graders. Now, we’re having to lean on them a little bit, and they need to have better at-bats. If they continue to progress like they have from Game One to Game Two, I think we’ll be OK.”
Allegany-Limestone will look to build on the positives within the result in its next game, set for 5 p.m. on April 1 at home.
AT ALLEGANY
Wellsville 032 000 3 R:8 H:8 E:0
Allegany-Limestone 000 000 0 R:0 H:1 E:5
Wells.: Button (4 SO, 3 BB), Cowburn (5 SO, 1 BB) and Ritter
A-L: Margeson (3 SO, 5 BB), Rhodes (2 SO, 1 BB) and Cowburn
