Gettysburg needed a win to lock up a spot in the District 3 Class 5A baseball tournament, but the Warriors came up short against former YAIAA-2 playmate West York. The Bulldogs claimed a 5-2 win in Gettysburg’s final regular season game of the 2023 campaign on Thursday at Sunset Park in West Manchester Twp.
Now the Warriors play the waiting game to see if they can get into the field of 16 with the final day of games to determine seeding set for Tuesday. The loss dropped them to 18th in the rankings.
The Warriors ran into burly righty Marcus Ropp, who was armed with a looping curveball and below-average velocity, but he combined those two things to keep the Gettysburg hitters off-balance all afternoon.
Gettysburg (11-9) managed just four hits and two runs (one earned) as Ropp went the distance on 84 pitches, 57 of them strikes. He struck out one and walked one.
“(Ropp) did a good job and his speed caught us off guard,” Gettysburg head coach Ryan Brady said. “We’ve been used to seeing hard-throwing pitchers and he was a lot slower than what we’ve been seeing. Give him credit, he kept us off-balance and got us to hit the ball at his fielders.”
The Warriors did mount a threat in the top of the third when Cody Furman belted a double to left with the visitors down a run.
A trio of groundouts by Gettysburg kept courtesy runner Andrew Reisinger stranded at third.
West York (9-11) doubled its advantage in the bottom of the third when M.J. Vottero ripped his second RBI single of the afternoon. In the first, he brought home Ian Thomson, then in the third, his knock chased home Evan Jones.
The Bulldogs added two more tallies in the fourth when Reed Fultz’s two-bagger plated Dylan Krout, and a single by Jones scored Fultz.
The fourth inning was the last of the afternoon on the bump for Gettysburg sophomore Carson Kuhns, who yielded four runs and eight hits with one strikeout and one walk. He was relieved in the fifth by southpaw John Darnell, and the junior hung a pair of zeroes on the board to keep the visitors in it. Darnell fanned four and allowed one hit.
“Our pitchers threw strikes. Carson and John were both good today,” Brady said. “They kept us in the game and gave us a chance.”
The Warriors were finally able to get on the board in the top of the seventh after Braden Manning singled to start the inning.
Hunter Gillin hit what appeared to be a double-play ball, but an error gave the Warriors some life with two on and none out.
A Tegan Kuhns single scored Manning, then following a lineout, Zach Williams hit into a fielder’s choice to score Gillin.
With the tying run at the plate, Ropp induced a groundout to end it.
“They were able to get the key hits today and we weren’t,” Brady said. “You’re one out away from getting out of an inning and they get a hit to keep things going.”
Thursday was the seventh time the Warriors scored two runs or less in a game this season, and their record in those games fell to 1-6.
“It puts a lot of pressure on your defense and your pitchers when you’re not hitting and scoring,” Brady said. “Today kinda summed up our season.”
Follow Tom Sixeas on Twitter at @TomSixeas
Gettysburg 000 000 2 — 2 4 1
West York 101 200 x — 4 9 1
Carson Kuhns, John Darnell (5) and Cody Furman; Marcus Ropp and Owen Ernst. WP-Ropp. LP: Kuhns. SO-BB: Kuhns 1-1, Darnell 4-0; Ropp 1-1. 2B: G-Furman; WY-Reed Fultz.
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