By SPENCER BATES
ALLEGANY — After his team’s first game of the 2026 season, Allegany-Limestone baseball head coach Eric Hemphill noted that the goal is to keep stacking upon successes.
If they are able to improve exponentially as the season progresses, come crunch time they will be a dangerous matchup.
Through just their fourth game of the season, a 8-0 win over Otto-Eldred, that growth has continued to be seen.
“First and foremost, you got to like the outing by Tayden (Margeson) on the mound,” Hemphill said. “He pounded the strike zone. (He had) 11 strikeouts and three walks and that’s the ratio that we want. That means he threw a lot of strikes. He really didn’t have a lot of strenuous outs to get. That’s why we’ve let him go as long as he has early in the season, because he was feeling OK. The batters are much improved. We put the barrel on a bunch of balls. We still hit balls right at people, but those will fall, and that starts to build confidence in their approach.”
On the mound, Margeson fanned 11 batters, walked three and allowed no runs on just four hits through 6.2 innings of work. The rapid development of Margeson has been perhaps the most glaring of any player on the team and according to Hemphill, it has all come down to locating his pitches.
“He has (improved) and part of it is just throwing strikes,” Hemphill said. “He was throwing three different pitches for strikes, which makes it tough on any team to hit. They have to recognize it. He had a really good breaking ball going today. Had the guys off balance. If he throws strikes, and he’s got that curveball working, then he’s got the opportunity to get some strikeouts.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Conner Crowley (15) watches a ball into his glove. (Hunter O. Lyle)
Supporting the stellar outing on the mound from Margeson was an opportunistic offense.
While the Gators connected for just five hits, they made sure not to disrupt the struggles of their guests, bringing across four runs in the fourth inning with just one hit recorded in the frame — courtesy of the leadoff batter.
“We’re not to the point right now where we’re going to put up 10 hits a game,” Hemphill said. “So when they give us base runners, we got to find ways to move them around. We had a nice bunt out of Dylan Schultz. We ran the bases well, and we took advantage of what they gave us, which is what we have to do, being a young team.”
A lopsided victory will certainly be welcomed by the team, but its eyes remain fixated on the next steps in their path. Hemphill noted there is still a need for improvement on the offensive side of their game, notably in terms of confidence at the plate. There are still too many unsure swings during at-bats for Hemphill’s liking, but he is positive that in time and with more experience in those situations, that confidence will come.
“It’s confidence, just knowing that they can do it,” Hemphill said. “They see it hit the barrel once and know that we can do that on a regular basis. It’s not going to happen every time, because it’s hard to do, but they can start to do it more often and then that confidence level keeps going up. … You don’t have to get a base hit every time. Just do something that helps the team.”
O-E had its fair share of defensive struggles in the game. A-L was able to get a number of runners on the basepaths and score a number of runs due to mistakes in the field. Head coach Lance Baker noted what he saw out of his team was the flipside to what he had seen in recent games. Against the Gators, he liked what he got out of his arms on the mound, but it was the defense behind his pitchers that had difficulties.
“Compared to other games this year, I thought today we pitched our best and our fielding fell off, where in our last couple games we haven’t pitched well, and we field the ball well,” Baker said. “We’re super young, and we gotta find a way to put it all together to where we’re pitching well, we’re backing up our pitcher, and putting the ball in play and doing good things. We just haven’t put those three aspects of the game together yet.”
Otto-Eldred’s Wyatt Blendinger (0) makes a dash for first base against Allegany-Limestone. Blendinger went 1-for-2 at the plate for the Terrors in their loss to the Gators. (Hunter O. Lyle)
However, Baker understands that these bumps in the road are all a part of the development of his younger team. Having lost significant veterans to graduation at the end of last season, this team is still in the process of finding its own identity.
“Game by game, we’re getting there,” Baker said. “We’re putting the ball in play more, we’re pitching better, we’re throwing more strikes. It’s a young group, and we’re gonna have those struggles, we’re gonna go through those growing pains. But we’re improving. We just gotta find a way to put all areas of the game together, and wins will come.”
The win moves Allegany-Limestone to 2-2 on the season and it will now take momentum into its next game, against Cameron County at home on April 8 at 4 p.m.
As for Otto-Eldred, it will look to pick up its first win of the season on April 8 at home against Coudersport.
AT ALLEGANY
Otto-Eldred 000 000 0 R:0 H:4 E:3
Allegany-Limestone 110 402 X R:8 H:5 E:0
O-E: Schenfield (3 SO, 5 BB), Collins (2 SO, 1 BB) and Splain
A-L: Margeson (11 SO, 3 BB), Rhodes (0 SO, 1 BB) and Chouinard
