The Guthrie BlueJay baseball season came to a screeching halt Friday afternoon with a 5-4 loss to the Duncan Demons in their home regional.
Duncan qualified for the state tournament by wining three games in the Guthrie Regional and will be joined by Deer Creek, Carl Albert, Chickasha, Collinsville, Claremore, Bishop Kelley, and Tulsa Washington.
After a slugfest on Thursday afternoon, both the Duncan and Guthrie pitching squads settled down. The difference on Friday was a Michael Rice RBI single in the top of the seventh to break a 4-4 tie.
Guthrie trailed 2-0 and neither team had a hit until the fourth inning. Senior Jaden Chappell got the Jays first hit and run on one swing of the bat with a solo shot the other way to pull within one.
Duncan responded with two more runs in the fifth with a single, double, and another single to go up 4-1.
The Jays, once again, cut the lead in half when senior Corbin Crockett drove in senior Dustin Bowman to make it a 4-2 game. Crockett just returned back to the line-up during regionals after missing several weeks due to an injury.
The Jays tied things up in the sixth. Senior John Cotton starting things off with a leadoff double. After a Jays ground out, Bryan Dutton struck out on a ball in the dirt and he took off for first, but the Demons catcher sailed the ball over the outstretched glove of the first baseman and allowed Cotton to reach third and Dutton to reach second.
Sophomore Hayden Seifert then hit a sacrifice fly to score Cotton and move Dutton to third. Jays catcher Landry Chappell’s doubled to left field to tie the game and to take the all important momentum of the Game 6, but the Demons responded in the seventh with Rice’s game winning hit.
Guthrie finishes the season with a 22-15 record and dropped six of their last 10 games.
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