MIDDLEBURY – What a difference a day makes as Plymouth’s Pilgrims took the long road trip to Middlebury on a high note after a big night against CMA only to have hard luck hit again in a 15-5 five inning loss to Northridge.
The Pilgrims came off a 22 run 17 hit performance and could manage just two hits through four innings against Raider starter Dylan Trick. After an Ezra Winkle lead off homer in the fourth the Pilgrim bats finally showed a little life but it wouldn’t be far too little, too late.
“It’s a ‘Jekyl and Hyde’ type of thing and it seems like it’s been that way all year,” said Plymouth head coach Ryan Wolfe. “We’ve been way up and way down sometimes in the course of the same game. And now we have to get through it again.”
Plymouth starter Nate Nixon had a tough night, struggling to find his command and gave up a pair of home runs to Bryce Miller and a grand slam to Trick in the third that would blow the game open.
“Some nights you have it, some nights you don’t,” said Wolfe. “We had an opportunity to push some runs across and didn’t get it done. It was a tough night all around. We had some base running errors there when we had an opportunity to cut into the lead.”
Trailing 10-0 Plymouth showed some life in the fourth pushing across two runs on Winkle’s solo homer and Benji Nixon’s RBI single but with the bases loaded and only one out couldn’t do any more damage.
Again in fifth a couple of walks by Trick and reliever Miller set up RBI hits by Jesus Luva and Nixon but a base running error ended that threat.
“A lot of times it’s not how many hits you get it’s when you get them,” said Wolfe. “We haven’t had that one key hit, maybe a double or something with second and third or first and second and be able to push some runs across there.”
The Raiders ended it in the bottom of the fifth with back to back homers – a three run shot by Cam Nickell and a solo by Cam Knepp.
“ We’ve got to continue to try to figure some things out and try not to ride the roller coaster up and down. Try to stay even keel,” said Wolfe.
“We hope a couple days of practice will help us reinforce those things that we really haven’t had a chance to work on for awhile because we’ve been playing every night,” said Wolfe. “Maybe we’re making some young mistakes like not understanding an at bat. Things like getting a runner over to second and third with less than two outs, just putting the ball in play and making them make some plays, hitting the ball the other way. Those are things we just have to get better at.”
Plymouth is now at 12-13 and have a big weekend with Crown Point and McCutcheon coming to Bill Nixon Field.
Plymouth 0 0 0 0 2 3 5-8-3
Northridge 4 0 6 1 4 15-9-2
WP – Dylan Trick (6-0). LP – Nate Nixon (3-2). HR – Bryce Miller 2 (N), Trick (NR), Cam Nickell (NR), Cam Knepp (NR), Ezra Winkle (P).
