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Tonganoxie baseball suffers first loss

By Benton Smith - | Apr 21, 2009

Benton Smith

Jon Harris watches a ball travel foul in a third-inning at bat against Turner on Tuesday. The Chieftains had trouble finding hits and lost, 6-0.

For the first time this season, a Tonganoxie High baseball player didn’t cross the plate, which, of course, led to another first for the Chieftains — a loss.

Turner handed THS its first loss of the year on Tuesday at Leavenworth County Fairgrounds, beating the home team, 6-0.

“Turner came ready to play, and we didn’t,” Tonganoxie coach Phil Loomis said after the shutout put the team’s record at 8-1. “We are still learning that when you go 8-0, people will be shooting for you and you’ve got to be ready for their best shot.”

Turner (7-4) took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first before adding another run in the third and getting a real advantage with a four-run fifth.

Trailing 2-0 in the third, the Chieftains were able to string together two hits with two outs, when Ethan Lorance and Rob Schlicht hit back-to-back singles to left field. But that was the most offense THS was able to produce the rest of the way, and the closest the team got to scoring.

Blaize Oelschlaeger had a bloop single in the fourth, but that was the last hit of the day for Tonganoxie as the Chieftains went down in order in each of the final three innings. THS batters just hit chopper after chopper, and Loomis said they were swinging like they were hoping not to strike out.

“We’ve got to get over that mentality against good pitchers,” he said.

Jace Waters threw the first six innings for Tonganoxie, but defensive errors (two in the third, a two-run error in the fifth and one more miscue in the sixth) made things difficult. Loomis said he hopes that isn’t the case on Wednesday, when THS travels to St. James Academy.

“A lot of our errors are because we don’t totally focus,” Loomis said. “We’ve got to go out tomorrow and take that step.”