Allen baseball hopes for postseason doused

Allen Community College’s baseball team was eliminated from playoff contention Thursday with two losses to Johnson County, falling 9-5 and 15-4.
The game’s weren’t going to be an easy task, since Johnson County is ranked the No. 4 team in NJCAA Division I baseball.
Allen had a chance to get the win in game one. Trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning, ACC rallied for four runs.
Ben Aslett started the inning with a single. Derrick Weir followed with single, pushing Aslett to third. Gabriel Gomez came up to the plate and hit a ground ball to the second baseman, who flipped the ball over to the shortstop for the force. Gomez beat out the throw to first, avoiding the double play, and knocking in Anslett.
Alex Lugo kept the inning alive, lacing a line drive to the wall in deep left-center for a stand-up double, putting two runners in scoring position. Chandler Crow followed with an RBI-single, and putting runners on first and third. Ryne Martinez brought a little luck. He hit a ball back to the pitcher, who fired it into the outfield on a bad throw. A run scored and runners were on first and third.
Nate Ek came through with an RBI, but was thrown out at first on a grounder fielded cleanly by Johnson’s shortstop. The tying run, Martinez, was stranded at third when the next Allen batter struck out.
In the top of the seventh, the last inning, Johnson put up four insurance runs. Allen went down in order in the bottom of the frame.
“We’ve put ourselves in positions to win a lot of games late,” coach Clint Stoy said. “That’s what I told them. We’ve had four walk-off victories at home this year. That just tells you about the character of this group of kids. It tells you they take a lot of pride and are never out of it.”
The Caviler offense torched the Red Devils in the second game for the 15-4 win.
ACC trailed 4-0 after the top of the first inning, thanks in part to a three-run homer.
Allen pushed a pair of runs across in its half of the first.
Ek and Jeremy Thomas started the inning with two singles. Julian Calixto came through with an RBI-single. Allen added another on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Martinez.
But Johnson took over from there, extending its 4-2 lead to 15-2 going into the bottom of the sixth.
Jonathan Mitchell drilled a solo blast in Allen’s sixth, and Aslett and Caeden Harris each hit a single in the inning, but were stranded.
The Red Devils then loaded the bases with nobody out after singles by Gunar Drinnen and Zachary Bickling and a walk to Crow. Hunter Murrow knocked in the final run, but it was at the cost of a double play.
The Red Devils wrap up the 2015 season with a doubleheader at Johnson starting at 1 p.m. today.
Although there won’t be playoffs in this team’s future, Stoy is happy with the direction the Red Devils are headed.
“It’s been positive. Coming into today’s doubleheader, I think we were 13-13 in our last 26 baseball games. We had two guys with significant college baseball experience coming into this season,” Stoy said. “You could see their growth and maturity, even from the sophomores who hadn’t played before. I enjoyed it, I really feel a lot of gratitude for these sophomores who had to go through two different coaches and learn two systems. It’s tough on an 18- or 19-year-old kid.”
Another positive has been the team’s grade-point-average.
“I’m looking forward to the direction of where the team is going. The team’s GPA in the fall was 3.31,” Stoy said. “I’m looking at getting guys graduated and roll them through here. I’m going to keep things going in a positive direction.”