Tigers bow out of playoffs

BY TIM EMMONS
temmons@casscountynow.com

For a few years now Linden-Kildare’s varsity baseball team has battled through tough tournaments, and a difficult district schedule wrought with senior laden teams when all they could field was a group of freshmen and sophomores.
Fast forward to present time and L-K has now made the playoffs two consecutive years, and this season the Tigers went into the postseason as the second-place team.
After sweeping DeKalb in a best-of-three series weekend before last, the Tigers faced off against fifth-ranked Van Alstyne in the area round on Friday and Saturday at Paris Junior College.
The result was a 13-2 loss in game one and a 12-2 loss in game two; ending the Tigers amazing season, and sending six incredible seniors off into the sunset.
Playing a hot team like Van Alstyne can be intimidating for some, and although the score might not indicate, L-K wasn’t worried about the team in the other dugout.
They still laced up and gave it all they had from first pitch to last out.
Game One
In the first game Van Alstyne jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the top of the opening frame, but L-K cut that lead in half after Brendan Bell walked, stole second, moved to third on a single by Blake Burns and scored on a passed ball.
The Panthers scored a run each in the next two innings for a 4-1 lead, but L-K answered with a run of their own in the third stanza.
In that inning Dalton Alford walked and moved to third in a hurry after a hard-hit double off the bat of Curt Wells.
Burns hit a single to center, scoring Alford, and the Tigers were down just two runs with the score sitting at 4-2.
The Panthers scored another single run in the fifth inning before the wheels fell off.
Van Alstyne plated five more runs in the sixth inning which increased their lead to 10-2, and three more runs in the seventh.
Burns was 3-for-4 with three singles and an RBI, Wells was 1-for-3 with a double and Montavius Tyson hit a single in the contest.

Game Two
The second game was not exactly how the Tigers envisioned their season to end.
The Panthers scored eight unanswered runs in the first three innings before L-K put two runs on the board in the fifth.
The game was called in the fifth inning on the 10-run rule after Van Alstyne put up another couple of runs.
Alford had a pair of singles with an RBI, Marty Johnson had a single and Chase Newman added a single.
The Tigers graduate six seniors but return several players with playoff experience which will be key when they enter a new classification next season.