Wolves Exit Baseball Tourney

GREENLAND — Lincoln senior Clay Pike modeled how to cope with failure instead of yielding to a temptation to wallow in selfpity as the Wolves baseball season ended Friday.

Lincoln played well early, maintaining a scoreless tie for three innings, before adversity piled up in the middle and latter innings of a game that went a full seven innings with Danville knocking Lincoln out of the postseason with an 9-0 loss.

The Wolves fell behind 1-0 to Danville in the bottom of the fourth inning on Friday during an elimination game in the first- round of the Class 3A Region 1 baseball tournament at Greenland. Starting pitcher Drew Moore had been effective up to that point, even working his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the third inning.

Despite the struggles, Lincoln coach J. Keith offered an objective assessment of the Wolves’ pitching. He was less thrilled with an inability to push runs across.

“We were able to get a strikeout and that was a big 6-3 put-out by Gauge Davis [at shortstop] to get out of that inning. We had a good pitching performance from all three of our guys but we need to put it together with more hitting,” Keith said.

In the fourth inning the Wolves got into trouble. Moore beaned the leadoff batter and walked the second man up. A throwing error allowed the leadoff man to reach third and he scored to break a 0-0 tie with no outs.

Danville’s third man up, Weston Blankenship, was ahead 3-0 in the count when Keith inserted Pike. Pike threw consecutive strikes to reach a full count, then threw a ball to walk Blankenship. Two batters later he issued a walk to load the bases, then Wolves’ infield couldn’t make a play on a single up the middle and a second run scored giving Danville a 2-0 lead.

Pike induced a flyball but Lincoln’s left fielder fell down in the wet grass and two more runners scored, upping Lincoln’s deficit to 4- 0. Pike walked the next guy and was relieved.

Case Enderland came to the mound and got the Wolves out of the inning trailing 5-0.

Danville added a pair of runs in the fifth following a leadoff walk. Jack Callahan singled to drive in a run and another scored on a passed ball. The Little Johns got two more runs in the sixth.

Reid Crawford led off the inning with a single into left field. Ethan Ellis was hit by a pitch. Seth Hale’s sacrifice fly plated Crawford and Ellis scooted home on a passed ball to make it 9-0.

Pike, who leads Bible studies on Fridays and worked to resurrect a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at Lincoln this school year, senses a divine presence sustaining him in the midst of personal adversity.

“Even in my toughest of times [He’s with me]. I struggled out here today, and whenever I got put back to the dugout I was like, ‘That’s OK, God has a plan.’ God’s very sovereign. He knows everything that’s going on. He’s never going to leave me even when I struggle or I mess up because his mercy is just insanely over-the-top where I don’t deserve any of it,” Pike said.

Pike’s advice to the student-athlete who doesn’t have family attending games or checking on their academic progress and is feeling isolated without a support structure is simple.

“Go to God. I know it sounds really cliché and just worn down, but just go to God. He’s paraclete, which means next to. He’s never going to leave you,” Pike said.