‘Some guys were ready to go; some guys weren’t:’ Coleman has 3-run triple, but Rochester falls to Lafayette Jeff

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

LAFAYETTE — Brady Coleman hit a three-run triple, but the Lafayette Jefferson baseball team hammered out 10 hits and beat visiting Rochester 9-5 at Loeb Stadium Thursday.

A 90-minute rain delay interrupted play after the second inning. Loeb Stadium has a turf field, and the game, which started at 6 p.m., resumed at 8:33.

Lafayette Jeff’s top three hitters – Ben Pickering, Mason Pechin and Ethan Lane – went a combined 8 for 10 with four RBIs and seven runs scored.

Lafayette Jeff won despite their pitchers walking four, hitting three batters and throwing five wild pitches.

Coleman had two of Rochester’s three hits, and Conner Dunfee had the other.

With Rochester trailing 5-1 in the fourth inning, Coleman came up with the bases loaded after Thomas Potempa hit Liam Spence with a pitch to load the bases. Lafayette Jeff coach Greg Franklin replaced Potempa with Trysten Barrett.

Coleman lofted a fly to shallow right field. Playing right field, Pickering raced in and made a diving effort but missed the ball, and it bounced behind him and rolled halfway to the warning track at the deep minor league ballpark.

Running on contact with two outs, Linden Wilburn, Conner Dunfee and Spence all scored, and Coleman slid in easily at third.

Barrett then retired Parker Casper on a grounder to short, and that was as close as the Zebras came to evening the score after the first inning.

Austin Franklin, the No. 9 hitter in the Broncho order, walked to lead off the bottom half, and he scored when Pickering annihilated a double to the gap. Pechin singled up the middle to move Pickering to third, and when the ball was booted for an error, Pickering scored and Pechin reached second.

Lane then tripled to the right-center gap to score Pechin, and Aidan Holle singled to center to bring home Lane and make it 9-4.

Brayson Flory relieved Dunfee and pitched three scoreless innings. He received help from Spence, who gunned down Pickering trying to score from second on Pechin’s single to shallow left to end the fifth.

Mitchell Clark’s RBI grounder to the pitcher in the seventh completed the scoring. Rochester had only one baserunner reach scoring position in the final three innings.

“We have not had the bats in our hands much this year,” Rochester coach Cory Good said. “Kind of by design. Just let’s get pitching and defense ready to go. Our defense isn’t ready to go yet. I think some of that is wet turf and angles in the outfield. There is a lot of ground to cover tonight, and there are some guys trying some new spots. That a big change for them.”

Spence, a move-in from Mishawaka Marian, and Clark, a sophomore, were the only two players who made their Zebra varsity debuts. Good lists 13 players on the varsity.

Rochester will play eight games in 10 days to start the season. That includes a three-way doubleheader at Jeffersonville that will also include Madison on Saturday.

That could stress the pitching staff, but all 13 varsity players are listed as pitchers on the game program.

“I really liked what I saw from Brayson Flory,” Good said. “Some guys were ready to go; some guys weren’t. I think we’ve practiced six days outside this year. … That’s probably pretty typical to be honest with you. … We knew tonight was probably going to be a rain delay. We’re going to have some time to sit around. We wanted to be careful with the way we went about our pitching there, so if we were going to sit around for an hour, that guy’s not coming back out, so we just wanted to get some guys on the mound and feel some things out.”

Rochester scored first when Coleman led off the season with a single to left. He advanced to third on a pair of wild pitches and scored on a Carson Paulik sacrifice fly to center.

Brant Beck started for Rochester and allowed a single to Pickering, a walk to Pechin and a single to Lane to load the bases. Holle’s sacrifice fly to Callen Ferverda in right tied it.

Two batters later, Asa Ritchie tripled to left-center to give Lafayette Jeff a 3-1 lead. A wind-blown pop-up that was dropped for an error made it 4-1.

Pickering tripled with one out in the second. Two batters later, Lane knocked him in with a hit to make it 5-1.

“They’re a very solid top of the lineup,” Good said. “Just great approaches. We got Brant out of there early. He was just like, ‘Every slider I throw, every change I throw, they’re just fouling it off.’ He usually gets a lot of swing and miss with that stuff. So a very solid order right there.”

Lafayette Jeff 9, Rochester 5

Rochester 100 300 1 – 5 3 3

Lafayette Jeff 410 400 X – 9 10 2

WP – Ethan Lane (2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K)

LP – Brant Beck (2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 1 K)

2B – Ben Pickering (LJ)

3B – Brady Coleman (RHS), Ethan Lane (LJ), Asa Ritchie (LJ), Ben Pickering (LJ)