By Rusty Nixon
Correspondent
GOSHEN – Plymouth’s Pilgrims fell victim to a lack of timely hitting and the result was a second NLC road loss to Goshen by a 3-2 final.
“It’s getting frustrating,” said Plymouth coach Ryan Wolfe. “It’s frustrating to the coaches I know that it’s frustrating to the players. We just have to keep pushing it’s going to turn around. It’s got to turn around.”
Wolfe’s frustration was at the wasting of another outstanding pitching performance, this night by Braydon Davidson, who struck out six in five innings of work and gave up just five hits and shut out the Redskins after the second inning.
“It’s been our achilles heel all year, getting hits when it matters,” said Wolfe. “We left some guys in scoring position again tonight. We’re hitting the ball hard but hitting the ball hard doesn’t count, we have to find a way to score them.”
Goshen found a way to score, turning an error in game one with an error, stolen base and two out single. They pushed across two more in inning two, once again taking advantage of the stolen base and the sacrifice bunt.
The Pilgrims took advantage of the stolen base and an error themselves in the third with Brandon Milligan scoring on a wild pitch. A two out walk to Justin Drudge followed by a Davidson double plated the only other Plymouth score.
“We need more than two runs especially going into the rest of the NLC season,” said Wolfe. “I knew coming in our pitching would be pretty good, right now we’re battling because right now the 3-2 ballgames and the one run losses are pretty tough.”
“We gotta stay positive. It’s the only thing we can do. It’s over with we aren’t going to change the score. We’re not going to change our at bats. We have to keep thinking about the good at bats that we’ve had and forget about the ones where we left a guy on base. We’re pitching well. I know we can hit. The only thing we can do is practice tomorrow and come back on Wednesday.”
Drudge had a pair of hits to lead the Pilgrims on the night, including a two out double and stolen base in the seventh that had him at third when the game ended. David Bacon also had a two out double in the fourth.
Plymouth moves to 4-5 on the season, Goshen stands at 5-9. Plymouth comes home to Bill Nixon Field on Wednesday to take on Wawasee.
Linescore
Plymouth 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 2-7-1
Goshen 1 2 0 0 0 0 x 3-7-2
WP – Adam Pearson. LP – Braydon Davidson. 2B – Phillip Wertz (G), Braydon Davidson (P), Justin Drudge (P), David Bacon (P).
