DUNLAP – It was a classic pitchers duel at Concord with Plymouth’s Pilgrims coming up on the short side falling to the Minutemen in a 3-2 final in eight innings.

Plymouth’s Cam Eveland and Concord’s Jason Grooms locked up in a pitch for pitch stalemate for seven innings with Grooms striking out six and giving up just two hits. Eveland struck out seven and scattered five hits but it was the two relievers – Luke Schrock for Concord and Caleb Mikesell for Plymouth – that would figure in the decision as Schrock was able to help himself with a walk off single in the bottom of the eighth.

“I thought both Cam (Eveland) and their pitcher (Jason Grooms) did a great job of changing speeds. The wind was blowing in so I knew a whole lot of runs weren’t going to be scored,” said Plymouth head coach Ryan Wolfe, “We just had to stay the course and we were able to get a couple runs across. It was a good ball game. No fun when you’re on the other side but we have to learn some things from it and move on to Friday.”

While the hitters struggled the pitchers were putting on a clinic on how to have a great outing.

“They were both around the plate, they were very aggressive, they were ahead of almost every hitter especially (Grooms) I don’t think he threw 20 pitches out of the strike zone all night,” said Wolfe. “In a game like that every freebie is going to cost you. We gave them some freebies and they were able to come through with a run there.”

“I thought our approach the first six games maybe came back and bit us – maybe we were a little bit too patient,” said Wolfe of his hitters. “(Grooms) was coming right at us and maybe we could have been just a little more aggressive than we were at the plate. We didn’t make the adjustments and I’ll take the blame for that.”

The loss on the road is the first in the NLC for the Pilgrims but left the team with more positives than negatives.

“We’re not going to change anything we’ve been doing,” said Wolfe. “We had ourselves in a position to win the ballgame.”

“We play on Friday. The loss is tough we want to win every game but they still have to come to our place later in the year and we just have to play for a split.”

The Pilgrims are now 5-2 on the year and play again Friday night at Bill Nixon Field against Warsaw.

LINESCORE

Plymouth 0 0 0  0 0 1  1 0 2-3-0

Concord  0 0 1  0 0 0  1 1  3-9-1

WP – Schrock. LP – Mikesell.  2B – Mae-Croft 2 (P), Pesak (P).