NOTE - no pictures taken of today's game.

Last year Panther Creek won it's first ever Tri-8 conference game, in fact they won 3 conference games. Cary, Lee County, and Panther Creek all finished last in the conference with 3-11 records, and two of Panther Creek's three wins came against those other two last place teams. The other win was against a conference co-champion Green Hope team which ended up 11-3 in conference play.

This year Panther Creek has been unable to beat any Tri-9 team including Cary or Lee County, even though both teams are again at the bottom of the conference. Yet incredibly they continue to have no problem with Green Hope, as they sweep Green Hope this year, their only conference wins this season, and now three straight wins against Green Hope.

In the past, the problem has been guys swinging for the fences, but not tonight. Green Hope had alot of good at bats, 7 hits and as many shots which could have been hits, but which Panther Creek made plays on. The one criticism on the hitting would be the lack of the clutch hit, no problem for the first two hitters to get on base, but alot of problems driving in those runners.

Daniel D'Elia started for Panther Creek, and even though he wasn't over powering, he didn't walk anyone and his team played good defense behind him. He gave up 6 hits (5 singles and a double) to the first 12 batters he faced, yet Green Hope only scored 1 run in that span. Could be a good trivia question how that is even possible, yet that's what happened.

Green Hope scored that run in the second inning, David Josam singled, stole second (hurting his hand with the slide), and was driven in by Anthony Colantino's single. Green Hope up 1-0 after 2 innings.

Max Povse started for Green Hope and struggled for most of his outing. In the first inning, he walked 2 batters but was able to get out of the inning without any runs scored. Similarly in the second inning, he gave up a leadoff single and a later walk, but again no runs. However in the third, another leadoff single was followed by a sacrifice bunt attempt which he booted, now runners on first and second and no outs. Panther Creek's Aaron Harris then ripped a double into the right field corner to score both runners. After another single put runners at the corners with still no outs, Adam Boghosian came into pitch.

Boghosian was able to retire the next 3 batters, however a wild pitch did let the runner from third score, Panther Creek up 3-1 after 3 innings. With Boghosian pitching, Panther Creek really never seemed to threaten to score, the next 4 innings were exactly the same, Boghosian would strikeout 2 and give up a single hit (he struck out the side in the 7th).

So as the Green Hope fans in the student section were counting off all Boghosian's strikeouts (11 total), it seemed they failed to realize that Green Hope was about to lose this game, even if 111 Panther Creek batters struck out. Green Hope didn't need Boghosian strikeouts, they needed Green Hope runs, and they weren't getting enough of those to matter.

Panther Creek gave Green Hope a gift in the 5th inning, as the relief pitcher for D'Elia walked the first 3 batters of the inning for the heart of the Green Hope lineup. That brought in Jordan Pressley to pitch, and Pressley got the next 3 Green Hope batters to hit a grand total of 100 feet of hits, a check swing grounder (20 feet) for a force at home, and sloooow roller to second (80 feet) for a ground out which scored a run, and of course the strikeout looking to end the inning. Actually since Green Hope didn't have any hits, getting a run may not be bad after all - bases loaded no outs, but no hits in the inning, it's a toss up.

The real killer was the bottom of the 7th inning, as Green Hope had a chance to win, and didn't capitalize. Down 3-2, Grant Shambley singled to center and stole second, then Will Yoder worked a walk, tying run at second, winning run at first, and no outs. But Green Hope responded with 2 strikeouts and a rip to deep left by Pistacchio that was caught, and ended up losing 3-2.

So Povse (1-3) takes the loss, Green Hope falls to 6-6 conference and 9-9 overall. Green Hope is now tied with Fuquay Varina and Apex for 4th in the Tri-9, 2 of the 3 getting into the playoffs. Green Hope plays both of those teams plus conference leading Holly Springs and third place Middle Creek and probably needs to win 2 of those 4 games for the playoffs. The "good news" is that they don't have to play Panther Creek anymore, or they would have "no shot" at the playoffs - Whew !!! Thank goodness for that !!!