Walk-off loss keeps Hampton baseball out of playoffs for 1st time since 2016
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Saturday, May 4, 2024 | 11:01 AM
Hampton third baseman Sean Sullivan snags a ball hit by Knoch’s Brady Long, saving extra bases on April 29.
Knoch’s Zach Saeler beats the throw as Hampton’s Sean Sullivan is late with the tag April 29.
Knoch’s Zach Saeler beats the throw as Hampton’s Sean Sullivan is late with the tag April 29.
Hampton’s Matt Erka makes a running catch on a ball hit by Knoch’s Sean Morgan on April 29.
Hampton’s Sean Sullivan fields the ball against Knoch on April 29.
One day after Hampton’s WPIAL playoff hopes ended with a walk-off loss at Knoch, senior Matt Erka searched for a bright spot.
“We tried our best, and we just couldn’t get it done,” the outfielder/pitcher said. “I guess it just wasn’t enough.”
Needing to win one of its final two Section 4-4A games against Knoch to clinch a postseason berth, Hampton was swept by the Knights to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
The losses plunged the Talbots into a fourth-place tie with Knoch at 4-6 in the section, and coach Kellen Wheeler’s team, which had won three in a row, missed the postseason on the head-to-head tiebreaker.
“We should have done it,” senior outfielder Sean Sullivan said. “We just fell a little short.”
Knoch had 21 hits in a 16-8 victory at Hampton on April 29 in the opener to force a winner-take-all showdown the following day. Hampton led 5-3 going into the bottom of the seventh, but Knoch rallied for three runs against Talbots starter Brady Smith and reliever Erka. Brady Wozniak’s two-run walk-off single ended it.
“You could tell everyone was heartbroken,” Erka said. “It was a battle, but they came out on top.”
The Talbots (8-7 as of May 3) were scheduled to close out the 2024 season at Mars, Chartiers Valley and Canon-McMillan in a four-day span from May 6-9.
The three consecutive road games are fitting for a season in which the Talbots only played five of their 18 scheduled games at home. While the Hampton diamond was undergoing early-spring renovations, the Talbots held their preseason practices at the Hampton Community Park field. They didn’t play their first home game until April 15 — the eighth game of the season. They were forced on the road for scheduled home games against North Catholic and Kiski Area in the first week of section play.
“It barely rains the night before and then the field’s not ready and we’re stuck in the gym again,” Erka said. “That definitely sucks for us.”
Said Sullivan, “We didn’t get a lot of reps on our field … That didn’t help.”
The scarcity of on-field work showed up in the games, as errors haunted Hampton all season. The Talbots committed five in a 6-4 section loss to Indiana and four in a 4-1 loss to Montour.
“That was probably the story of the whole year,” Erka said. “Errors were costly to us. We might have had one or two clean games.”
Despite the hurdles, Hampton went 3-0 during a late March trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and rallied for walk-off victories over North Catholic (7-6), Highlands (5-4) and Deer Lakes (6-5 in eight innings) during the up-and-down season.
The seniors, who last season helped earn the program’s first WPIAL playoff victory since ‘18, include Erka, Sullivan, third baseman/catcher Brady Long, pitchers Caleb Custer and Parker Brockway, outfielder Norby Hock and infielder Gustavo Arias.
“Just being around the guys is definitely fun,” Erka said. “Win or lose, we will always find the positives and we’ll get over it eventually.”
Tags: Hampton
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