The AC/GC baseball team was one strike away from pulling off the upset against Ogden Monday night.
The Chargers found themselves in trouble early as starting pitcher Clayton Wardyn walked the bases loaded with just one out in the first inning. The Junior hurler found the strike zone and worked his way out of the inning unscathed. It was AC/GC who struck first blood stealing a run in the second as Lucas Marsh scored from first on a Reid Rumelhart double. The Bulldogs answered back in the fourth as they came across the plate with the bases loaded. Thanks to careful pitching from Wardyn, the Chargers were able to limit the damage to one. Ogden would go on to take the lead in the fifth by adding one more score to take a 2-1 lead into the sixth frame. After back to back one-two-three innings by Ogden ace Dylan Elbert, the Chargers found some life after Newell Rodgers reached first on a single, then was able to get to third base on a past ball. A fly ball off the bat of Cayden Jensen was deep enough to bring Rodgers home to tie the game at two.
Entering the sixth, Wardyn gave the ball up for senior Bryce Littler who was lights out and threw two scoreless innings to force extra innings. In the eighth Rodgers caused more trouble for the bulldogs with a leadoff single. With their leading hitting in Bryce Littler at the dish, Rodgers stole second to get into scoring position with zero outs. Littler delivered with a RBI single to take a 4-3 lead, which they would take into the bottom frame. In the bottom half, Littler returned to the mound. The inning got off to a rough start after a lead off single. Littler bounced back with back to back strikeouts and got up 0-2 on Ogden’s top hitter.
Ogden senior Kolby Moorman came through with a two out single to bring home the tying run. One at-bat later, Ethan Snedden knocked in Moormon to walk off the game in the bottom of the eighth.
The Chargers fall to 1-5 after the heartbreaking loss and will return to action later today when they make the trip to square off against Exira-EHK.