by Steve Bradley
The season came to a screeching end for the #4 seeded HFCS baseball team last Thursday when they fell to the #5 seeded Schuylerville Black Horses 13 – 1. The Horses jumped on the Panthers right from the start and never let the Panthers see a glimmer of hope for a victory.
By the end of second inning Schuylerville held a 5 – 0 lead. By the end of the fourth with the score at 9 – 1, the Horses were firing on all cylinders and the Panthers were dead in the water.
Sophomore Ryan Sanders was given the tough task of trying to keep the Horses offense in check. With the loss of senior pitcher Kealan Hitt due to a broken arm suffered during a game a couple weeks earlier, Sanders was asked to fill the void. Sanders ran into a hot offense, giving up 12 hits and seven earned runs. But with no Panthers offensive support, it wouldn’t have mattered if he had given up two runs on one hit, it wouldn’t have been enough. The Panthers could only come up with three hits, scoring one run in the second inning when Garrett Wright smacked a ground rule double to drive in Noah Conety.
Schuylerville went on to defeat #1 seed Spa Catholic to earn their way into the Section II championship game against #3 seed Albany Academy. The game will be held Thursday, May 28, at 4 pm at Joe Bruno Stadium.
Hoosick Falls ends the season with an 11 – 3 league record, 13 – 7 overall.