By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter
It took nine innings, but North Little Rock came back from a five-run deficit to beat the scrappy Sylvan Hills Bears 7-6 on Saturday in a nonconference game at the Sherwood Sports Complex.
Neither team was able to score in the first inning, but three costly errors by the Charging Wildcats (12-2, 4-0) in the bottom of the second resulted in a five-run inning for the Bears (8-7, 5-1).
Jacob White and TJ Burrow started the inning with singles, and Nathan Thomas walked to put the home team in a bases loaded situation with no outs. Connor Poteet then came to the plate and hit a routine grounder to shortstop.
The NLR shortstop threw to second base for the force out, but the second baseman couldn’t make the catch, and as a result, all three runs scored and Poteet wound up at second base. Reid Fawcett was next up, and he hit a ground ball to the second baseman, but the throw to first was out of reach, and Poteet scored with ease to give the Bears a 4-0 lead.
Leadoff hitter Brandon Baioni was next up and he reached on an E6 as the NLR shortstop’s throw to first was also out of the first baseman’s reach. Fawcett went to third on the bad throw. With runners at the corners, Baioni took off for second, but found himself caught in a rundown.
However, he was able to distract the NLR infield long enough to allow Fawcett to score from third to give Sylvan Hills a 5-0 lead.
Preston Oberling and Alex Gosser scored for the Charging Wildcats in the third. Oberling was hit by a pitch at thestart of the inning, and scored later on when Chandler Thompson’s grounder to first base was too hot to handle. Spencer Byrd drove in Gosser the next at bat with a single to the left field gap, cutting the Bears’ lead to 5-2.
White scored Sylvan Hills’ final run in the fifth as Thomas hit a slow roller in front of home plate. Thomas was narrowly thrown out on the play, but White scored from second base as he hustled his way home, giving the Bears a 6-2 cushion.
Sylvan Hills’ sophomore pitcher Hunter Heslep was pulled after walking his fourth batter of the game in the top of the sixth. He was solid through five innings of work, striking out five while giving up just three hits in his time on the mound, but NLR adjusted well to the pitching change.
Two-straight Charging Wildcats were walked in Heslep’s relief and with the momentum on their side, the Wildcats, class 7A’s No. 2 ranked team, racked up four runs in the sixth to tie the game at 6-6.
“He threw great,” said Sylvan Hills coach Denny Tipton of Heslep’s performance on the mound. “We put a sophomore out against the No. 2 team in (class) 7A. He goes out there and competes and pitches well, well enough to win. But, you know, we helped them out that one inning with a bunch of walks and a few errors.
“Of course they helped us out in the second inning. It was kind of like who is trying to give (the game) away at times. But, you know, we just came out on the short end of the stick.”
Jake Sandefur was hit by a pitch in the top of the ninth to lead off the inning, and scored what ended up being the winning run as Paul Morris hit a ground ball to shortstop with two outs. As Morris hustled to first base, the throw to first was short, and the first baseman was unable to hang on to the backhand scoop, which allowed Sandefur to set the final score.
North Little Rock threw five different pitchers in the game. Dillon Howell, the fifth pitcher to take the mound for the Wildcats, got the win as he pitched the sixth inning on. He struck out four Sylvan Hills’ batters in his time on the mound.
The game also had its share of controversy, especially in the eyes of North Little Rock coach Randy Sandefur. Gosser started the eighth inning with a single up the middle, and Howell hit into a fielder’s choice at second base the next at bat. Howell was initially ruled safe, but was later called out because of runner’s interference by Gosser as Sylvan Hills tried to turn the double play.
Sandefur argued the call, and was ejected from the game one-batter later for expressing his discontent with the call.
“They ruled that the catcher (Gosser) came in and when he slid, he went through the player,” Sandefur explained. “Well the player needs to be on the bag. What bothers me is the umpire calls (Gosser) out, calls (Howell) safe. Then coach (Tipton) goes out there and all of a sudden it’s a different story. I don’t buy that.”
In the bottom part of the inning, Gosser was ejected from the game as he prevented a Sylvan Hills’ base runner from running him over at the plate, which also prevented the Bears from scoring the game-winning run.
“I thought our pitchers did really well,” Sandefur said. “We threw a bunch of them today. It’s sad that Alex Gosser got ejected. I don’t agree with that call. The (Sylvan Hills) guy was coming in standing up, so what are we supposed to do? So we’re going to have to go into our next conference game Tuesday missing two or three guys.
“And it’s unfortunate I was ejected, but if we did that 10 times and the play was in question, I would’ve been out there 10 times. That was not right. It was wrong. The umpires aren’t supposed to be seen. It’s the kids. I just don’t think (the officials) did an adequate job. Should I have been ejected? Yes. I wasn’t trying to get ejected, but I was fighting for our kids.”
Byrd, Sandefur, Gosser, Howell, Morris and Gray each had a hit for NLR. Charlie Roberts and White had two hits apiece for Sylvan Hills, while JD Miller, Burrow and Fawcett each had a hit.
