ACCIDENT — When things looked grim, Northern skipper Phil Carr reminded his club that Allegany had to get the final three outs: There’s no clock in baseball.
Northern had squandered a golden opportunity to win it in eight innings, and after a two-run single by Cole Ricker in the ninth, the Huskies found themselves in a 4-2 hole with just three outs to play with.
After Northern got one run back, Allegany left-hander Sebastian Stewart appeared to spin the winning strikeout on a breaking ball in the dirt. The ball spurted away from the catcher, and the tying tally scampered 90 feet home on the dropped-third strike to force another extra frame.
The teams battled darkness as the contest stretched into the 10th inning, but Northern’s Elliott Myers-Shirer must get an ample dose of vitamin A. He drew a free pass on a 3-2 pitch to push the winning run across and send the fourth-ranked Huskies to a 5-4 win over No. 1 Allegany on Wednesday.
“It was a heck of a game,” Carr said. “There were some situations where both of us could have won the game. Then both of us gave the other team the opportunity to get it tied.
“We were running out of daylight, but didn’t have a clock. So you just keep grinding and you keep playing and we found a way today.”
Wednesday’s thriller was the latest chapter in what’s been the Western Maryland Athletic Conference’s premier rivalry over the last four years. The last three Class 1A West Region I finals came down to Northern and Allegany.
Northern (5-2) won its fifth straight and upped its mark in the WestMAC to 3-2. Allegany fell to 6-2 overall and 2-1 in the league.
Tied at 4 entering the 10th, Allegany put two runners on with nobody out before a double play started by third baseman Caleb Hinebaugh and a groundout erased the threat.
Allegany got the first out of the next half-inning. Northern drew four straight walks to end it after more than three hours.
“It was a battle,” Allegany manager Jon Irons said. “We don’t expect anything less when we come up here. We had our opportunities to win it at times and we had been coming through and there’s opportunities early in the season here. Couldn’t get the timely hits at times today that we had been.
“It felt a little bit like a playoff game, and that’s good experience for us.”
The first six innings featured a pitchers duel between two All-Area first-teamers a season ago in Allegany right-hander Kohen Madden and Northern righty Landon Yoder.
Yoder needed just 50 pitches to get through five innings and pitched into the ninth. Madden exited after six frames with a 2-1 lead.
Madden was in line for the win after Allegany plated two runs in the sixth. Madden leveled the score with an RBI single to right field, and the go-ahead tally crossed when a single by Daulton Harper to left got under the left fielder’s glove to let another run score.
With Madden out of the game in the seventh, Emmitt Lipscomb lined an RBI single to left to force extra innings tied at 2.
Stewart entered with Northern runners on first-and-third with nobody out in the eighth, and the lefty walked the tightrope to strand the winning run at third thanks to back-to-back clutch strikeouts and a diving catch by Allegany center fielder Kyran Freeman.
“We should have won it in the eighth with nobody out,” Carr said. “Less than two outs with somebody at third, you’ve got to put something in play. We even tried two safety squeezes with two hitters, and they fouled them off.”
Northern’s Jake Chambers was 3 for 3 and scored twice, and he received the Barry Bonds treatment late with three intentional walks in the seventh, ninth and 10th innings.
Myers-Shirer had three RBIs, Hunter Beitzel singled twice, and Hunter Livengood was 2 for 4 with a double — his two-bagger lowered Northern’s deficit to 4-3 in the ninth before the dropped-third strike.
Myers-Shirer, the Northern catcher, also threw out a would-be base-stealer at second to stamp out a potential Allegany rally in the eighth.
Madden went 4 for 4, Ricker was 3 for 5 with two ribbies and Freeman doubled.
Allegany finished with an 11-8 edge in hits and Northern made all three of the game’s errors, but the Huskies took advantage of 11 Campers walks.
Yoder didn’t walk a batter in his 8 1/3 frames of work. He allowed four runs (two earned) on 11 hits with three strikeouts on 106 pitches.
“Landon was really good against a team that’s been hot swinging the bat,” Carr said. “He did a great job. He was locating really well today.”
Beitzel threw 1 2/3 shutout innings in relief to register as the winning pitcher.
Madden wasn’t sharp at times and stranded Northern runners in each of his first five innings, but the right-hander found his groove late by striking out the side in order in his final frame.
The right-hander struck out 11 across six innings, allowing a run on five hits and two walks.
“Kohen gave us a solid start,” Irons said. “We’re still working on tweaking some things, location over velocity, those types of things. And I think he’s doing a good job with that and hopefully by the time we get to May, he’s pitching his best.”
Northern is off until Monday when it hosts Mountain Ridge (1-7, 0-3 WestMAC) at 4:30 p.m.
Allegany has no let up in its schedule, as the Campers host Washington County power Clear Spring on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
The matchup will be between two of the last three state champions in Class 1A. The Campers are the defending title holders, and the Blazers won it all in 2022 and ‘23.
“There were a ton of good lessons in this game today and we had a ton of inexperienced kids getting experience in high pressure situations,” Irons said.
“We can take a lot away from this, from the experience that we gain and mistakes that we can correct and be ready for playoff baseball.”