The third-seeded 10-5 Cook County High School baseball team fell to the sixth-seeded Carlton Bulldogs 5-2 in a subsection 7A game played Tuesday, May 29 in Virginia, ending their season. Had the Vikings won, they would have entered into double elimination play. A first round loss, however, knocked them out of the tournament.
If there is a silver lining to the loss it is that many of the starting players are juniors and sophomores, and the team should be very good next year.
Vikings’ head coach Arleigh Jorgenson was reticent following the disappointing loss.
“Heading into the playoffs, we knew we had to do two things, we had to hit the ball, and we had to play defense,” coach Jorgenson said. “To go anywhere, we had to help our pitchers. We had to be very efficient. If we did not, we would run out of competitive pitching very early in this tournament. We did not hit very well, and we failed to execute a few defensive plays.”
Kaden Krane, the Carlton Bulldog pitcher, “was too much for us on the mound,” Jorgenson said.
Still, the Vikings had their chances.
“In the first we loaded the bases when Carlton made two errors, yet we could score only once on a sacrifice fly by Cameron Roy. We felt a little bit of momentum, but it was short-lived,” said coach Jorgenson.
“We opened the door in the second by failing to execute two defensive plays, and the result was a run and renewed confidence for Carlton. In the third, they extended their lead to 4-1 with three walks, two doubles, and a single. We relieved Josh Prom with Andrew Miller. A leadoff double and an error plated another run for Carlton in the fifth. Three back to back to back singles in the fifth brought in the Vikings’ second run, but again, two runners were stranded.
“In the end, we left too many runners on base. Carlton out-hit us 7-4, drew 7 walks while we drew only 1. Carlton struck out 10 times to our 7.
“I do not believe this game was a true measure of who we are, but it was a true measure of who played the better game.
“We were out-played tonight,” said the coach. “As I told the players after the game, it was a disappointing result for a team that we felt had a chance to go all the way. Our pitching was strong, but not strong enough to survive our poor hitting performances, and defensive mistakes.
“This is a good ball team, however, and I know the boys are all hoping for another chance to prove it this summer. We did have a nice run through our compacted two week schedule in mid-May, but it feels like we need more time and more games to become the team we believe we are.”
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