For The Tribune
Seymour baseball coach Jeremy Richey wasn’t sure how the Owls would respond Saturday after dropping their game against Columbus East on Thursday night.
“We’ll take that,” he said after the Owls rallied in the seventh innings of both games for one-run wins Saturday at American Legion Field.
The Owls trailed Lowell, Michigan, 1-0 entering the seventh inning before they rallied for a 2-1 win in the first game.
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Later in the day, the Owls trailed New Albany 2-0 entering the fourth inning when they scored two runs to tie the game, then pushed across the winning run in the bottom of the seventh for a 3-2 victory to push their record to 6-1.
All of Seymour’s runs on the day came with two outs.
“That’s what this group needs,” Richey said of the rallies. “We need to go through some adversity and grow from it. I think maybe the sixth and seventh innings Thursday night against Columbus East we learned something about finishing games. I’m very proud of our kids today.”
Lowell bunched three hits in the third inning to take a 1-0 lead of their game.
The Owls had left seven runners on base through the first six innings, and the first two batters in the bottom of the seventh made outs before Seymour put its rally caps on.
Satoshi Hirose drew a walk and went to second on an error on the catcher. Ryan Wieneke then hit a pop-up over the second baseman’s head that fell in short right field as Hirose tied the game.
Moore then lined a hit to right-center that brought home Wieneke with the winning run.
The Owls had seven hits in the opener, with Wieneke and Moore collecting two each.
In the second game, New Albany was on top 2-0 when the Owls came to bat in the bottom of the fourth. Jorge Vega was hit by a pitch and Luis Munoz singled, and Perry and Hirose singled to drive in runs.
Hirose walked in the seventh inning. He advanced to second on a double play and scored on Moore’s single.
Hirose had two hits in the game.
Some of the adversity Richey referred to was base-running mistakes and missed signals.
“That’s what we talk about,” Richey said. “There are going to be ups and downs in this game. We want guys that want to be up at the plate when that situation (chance to drive in winning run) happens. It was nice that it was Mitch in both of those situations.
“Offensively, it was not a great day for us, but any time that we pitch and play defense the way we did today, we’re going to be in games. I think the offense will keep coming.”
Moore allowed six hits and struck out eight in the opener, while Bloom had seven strikeouts and allowed seven hits in the second game.
“They were great,” Richey said. “The only thing I can say is they walked a few guys, and we want to see them limit that. We’d like to have a couple walks at the most per game, but they battled. For us to give up three runs in two games, we’re going to take our chances with that.
“We’re 6-1, and that is a pretty good start. We’ve just got to make sure that we keep getting better every day. It’s not about who we play next or what we’ve done to this point. We just want to be better on Monday than we were (Saturday).”