ACGC Baseball Comes From Behind to Defeat Ex-EHK, 10-4

The ACGC baseball team was forced to play catch up in the early going before coming from behind to defeat Exira-ElkHorn-Kimballton, 10-4, in a non-conference game played last night on the Charger diamond.

The Chargers fell behind early and trailed by a 4-1 margin after the Spartans tallied three runs in their third at bat. After the visitors took a 1-0 lead in the opening inning, ACGC tied it at one apiece when Cayden Jensen doubled, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and scored on Eli Kading's ground out to first base.

Ex-EH-K broke the 1-1 tied when it scored three runs in the top of the third inning to take the lead at 4-1. ACGC responded with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning. Clayton Wardyn opened the at bat with a walk and scored on Charlie Crawford's double. Newell Rogers followed that up with a single to drive in Crawford and the Chargers closed the deficit to 4-3.

The Chargers took the lead for good in inning number four when they tallied three runs. Jensen's single stated things off. Spartan pitching waked both Eli Kading and Reid Rumelhart to load the bases. After Jensen came home on Lucas Marsh's sac fly, Wardyn's single loaded up the bases again. A throwing error by the Spartan pitcher enabled Kading to score, and Brock Littler drove Rumelhart home with another sacrifice fly. By inning's end, ACGC had taken a 6-4 lead.

While Charger freshman pitchers Andrew Mahaffey and Tegan Slaybaugh shut down the Spartans the rest of the way, the Charger offense picked up two runs in both the fifth and sixth innings to get to the final 10-4 score.

The final four runs scored by ACGC included only one hit--Cayden Jensen's sixth inning single to drive in the final two runs of the game. Spartan pitchers were their own worst enemy, as they hit five Charger batters and walked two in the fifth and sixth innings. Newell Rogers was hit twice during the game, and now leads class 2A in number of times hit by pitch with fourteen incidents.

Cayden Jensen had a big night at the plate, as the junior cacher went three for three and accounted for three runs batted in. Rogers had two of the Charger hits, while Charlie Crawford and Lucas Marsh each had doubles.

Mahaffey picked up the win as he pitched into the sixth inning and gave up four tuns on four hits, while Slaybaugh threw an inning and two thirds of hitless ball.

"This was another night where we put together quality at bats," an encouraged coach Morris said following the victory. "Our guys didn't panic when we got down four to one and made a comeback to eventually end the game on a nine to zero scoring run. If we keep playing baseball like this, good things will continue to happen."

With the victory the Chargers improve their season record to eight wins and fourteen losses.

Score by inning:

Ex-EHK 103 000 0-- 4 4 2

ACGC 012 322 x--10 8 2

ACGC hitting: (AB-R-H-RBI) Littler(2-0-0-1) Crawford(4-1-1-1) Rogers(2-2-2-1) MKading(3-1-0-0) Jensen(3-3-3-2) EKading(2-1-0-1) Rumelhart(0-1-0-0) Marsh(2-0-1-1) Wardyn(1-1-1-0)

Pitching: (IP-H-R-ER-SO-BB) Mahaffey(5.33-4-4-2-4-3) Slaybaugh(1.67-0-0-0-2-0)