Siloam Springs drops two to Harrison
Siloam Springs Post 29 hosted Harrison for a pair of summer baseball games on Thursday, after a few last-minute scheduling conflicts with Harrison players moved the game back from its original date on Wednesday.
The Panthers fell to Harrison 7-3 in a hard-fought first game, and they fared no better in the second half of the doubleheader.
Both teams started out strong on defense, with the first five innings turning into a pitcher’s duel between Siloam Springs pitcher Chance Junkermann and Harrison’s Adam Brown.
Siloam Springs was able to find a pair of runs off Brown, the first coming in the second inning when Junkermann was sent home on a ball put in play by Charlie Hilburn, and the second from L.T. Ellis, who was batted in by a Junkermann double.
Junkermann kept the visitors off the board until the fifth inning, striking out nine in the process.
That first Harrison run would come from Tanner Taylor, who hit a double off Junkermann to send home Noah Brown, who led off the inning with a walk.
“Started out, the first couple innings, pitcher’s duel,” said Drew England, Siloam Springs coach. “Got a few runs up on the board, looked good there.”
“Didn’t put any more runs up, it’s tough to win a game when you put up less runs than they do,” England said.
Strong pitching gave the Panthers a chance to get a win, as Junkermann allowed only three hits in the first five innings.
“Man, you can’t ask for anything else than six pretty solid innings. We probably could have given him more support than one or two runs, but he did a great job.”
But the Panthers would not be able to hold on to their strong early performance.
Harrison would take the lead for good in the sixth inning, as doubles from Cooper King and Thailer Lovell powered the visitors to a three-run inning, resulting in the first pitching change for Siloam Springs.
Down 2-4, Tanner Broyles made the game close again, after a meltdown on defense resulted in an infield triple for Broyles, after bad throws to first, second and third base in turn. Completing the cycle of errors, Broyles reached home on a pass ball by King, who came in to relieve Brown to start the sixth inning.
Harrison limited the damage,
retiring Siloam Springs’ next three batters, and the final inning of play cemented the win for the visitors.
Harrison scored three runs in the seventh, from Teagan James, King and Jake Moorehouse, thanks to a pair of Panther errors.
“(It’s) just mental errors,” said England. “It’s part of the game, we’ve just got to take it one play at a time.”
Harrison 13, Siloam Springs 3
Harrison followed up
their win in the first half of the double-header with a four-inning shellacking of the home team.
The visitors started out strong behind first inning runs by Lovell and Tanner Taylor, and another tally in the second inning when Damien Ireland scored on an error at first on a hit from Ty Phillips.
Harrison created a 3-0 deficit for the Panthers heading into the third inning. The visitors scored three more runs in the third, but Siloam Springs clawed back into striking distance with their first three runs of the game. Jacob Rowe, Nolan Wallis and Trey Gettys all scored
for the Panthers, scored by RBI singles from Gettys and Ellis, and a sacrifice fly from Baron Meek.
But Harrison ran away with the game after an explosive fourth inning, which saw the visitors send 12 batters to the plate.
Powered by three singles and five walks, Harrison scored seven runs to take the game out of the Panthers’ reach.
These were the final home games on the schedule for Siloam Springs, though England said the team was trying to get a few more games in before the state tournament at the end of July.