Five RHS seniors played their final game as Tiger baseball players Tuesday night in the blue-and-gold’s 2-1 loss to McGregor.
Seniors Tyler Caldwell, Zac Davis,Vincent Flores, Jackson Perry and Ryker Zinn helped the team end its 2019 season with a 14-10-1 record overall and 5-9 record in district 19-3A.
The Bulldogs took the lead in the first inning of the game after two Tiger errors extended the inning for McGregor which led to two runs.
“After that we couldn’t put the ball in play for the entire game,” said Coach John Hooser.
RHS beat McGregor 11-3 in their district opener in March.
The Tigers began the season splitting a double header, losing to Thorndale and defeating Round Top-Carmine. They came back three days later to beat Buffalo 9-7.
During the tournament portion of the season, they won both the
Anderson-Shiro and Thorndale/Thrall tournaments winning five games in a row.
After beating McGregor at the start of district, the Tigers went through a rough patch losing to Little River-Academy, Rogers and Cameron. Rockdale snapped its six game losing streak by defeating Lexington 12-4 and 13-10.
The Tigers lost their next series with Troy, one of the top teams in Class 3A. RH battled back sweeping Franklin, a playoff team who finished 10-4.
Earlier in the week, the Tigers got their fifth district with an 8-7 win over Franklin in the final inning.
RHS got off to a slow start with after they went three-up three down in the first two innings against Colton Ortner and falling behind the Lions 4-0 in the bottom of the second.
The Tigers tied the game up at four in the top of the third with run-scoring hits by Devon Whitsel and Jackson Perry and scored another run in the top of the fifth to take the lead 5-4.
Franklin took 6-5 in the fourth and grew their lead to 7-5 in the bottom of the sixth.
In the Tigers final at-bat, Whitsel led off with a single to leftfield and Zinn followed in his steps with a single to leftfield as well. Perry drove them in on single to right field and the game winning was a single to right by sophomore Ryan Blair who scored in Zac Davis to give the Tigers 8-7 lead.
Tyler Caldwell held the Lions in the final inning to earn the win for the Tigers. Caldwell allowed no hits in three innings and struck out four. Zinn also pitched four innings and allowed three hits and struck out six.
Whitsel led Rockdale at the plate going three-for-four.
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