Gardner – The last time Bluefield and PikeView met on April 6, both threw their aces Hunter Harmon and Nathan Riffe in a 3-1 duel that took 80 minutes to complete.
The sectional matchup between the two yielded a much different result.
PikeView, which struck out 15 times in that last matchup, finished with eight hits and capitalized on five errors Tuesday to down the Beavers 11-7 in Gardner.
With the win the Panthers move to the sectional Friday’s sectional title game. Bluefield drops to the losers bracket where it will await the winner of Westside-Wyoming East, hoping to earn a rematch with PikeView.
Harmon grabbed the spotlight early when his two-run home run in the top of the second afforded him a 2-0 lead.
Then the Panthers promptly stole it in the bottom of the third, scoring five runs and never relinquishing the lead.
“It was the growth through our season,” PikeView head coach Josh Wyatt said. “I give credit to my assistant coaches that identified things. Early in the season we never thought we could be a 20-win ball team and we did that tonight. what’s changed from our last game with them ’til now is our attack at the plate. We were a team that was really wishing for a way on and not by a walk but with two strikes we were hoping to get an error or a dropped third strike and we didn’t have a confident approach and you can see them now, they’re visualizing hits and visualizing success.”
Auldon Perkins sparked the early rally with a single, taking second on an error in right field. Kalum Kiser followed with a walk and Austin Bennett bunted for single to load the bases. Making matters worse for Harmon was that was just the bottom of the order.
Riffe helped his own cause at the top of it with an RBI single and Drew Damewood kept the train rolling with a bases loaded walk that drove in the tying run. Zach Rose reached on an error that allowed Bennett to score, giving the Panthers a 3-2 lead with an out yet to be recorded. Sammy Lyle added the finishing touches with a two-run single.
Harmon stopped the bleeding by retiring three of the next four batters but the Panthers were already amped.
“You can’t do that with any team,” Bluefield coach Jimmy Redmond said. “We were up 2-0 early and it seemed like we didn’t keep the intensity up. They came back and they didn’t stop.”
The Panthers rolled through the next three innings, scoring two runs in each while the Beavers could only muster one during that stretch.
Facing an 11-3 deficit in the final frame, their bats finally picked up as they scored four runs with two outs, bringing the tying run to the plate while pushing Riffe to his pitch count limit. The comeback ultimately fell short with the Panthers inducing a pop out to first to cement the win.
It was a 180 for PikeView, the top seed, which nearly lost the sectional opener against Westside Monday night, requiring a five-run rally to win in extra innings.
“Yesterday was a wakeup call,” Wyatt said. “Our approach from the end of the day was terrible and that starts with the coaching staff. I addressed that as soon as the game was over and we fixed that today after school. We played some of our laziest baseball but what I commend the kids on is they’re learning baseball and their maturity has shown up in the last two days in the fact there was no quit. They put balls in play hard and even last night they were putting balls in play. Westside was making plays.
“Tonight we opened with three balls in play. Not hard, but better than what we did against Harmon at Bluefield the second game. We knew there was an attack there and we changed how we approached him and they just stuck to it. One of our goals that we hang up in the dugout is playing for that big inning and we had that and answered back when they got their runs. We kept pressure on them all night.”
Riffe led the charge for the Panthers, pitching 6.2 innings while allowing just two earned runs. At the plate he finished 2 for 5 and was one of five Panthers to drive in two runs.
Harmon led Bluefield with two hits and four RBIs in the loss.
The Beavers will get a day of rest before hosting the winner of Wednesday’s Wyoming East-Westside matchup in an elimination game at Bowen Field.
“We’ll get a day of rest and hopefully a good practice tomorrow,” Redmond said. “Hopefully we’ll work out some kinks on defense. Take a lot of ground balls and fly balls and keep fighting. We’ve got to beat this bunch twice.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
