The No. 2 Foothill baseball team was two outs away from defeating No. 3 Chico and gaining a massive advantage heading into the Super Regional round of the Northern Section Division II playoffs.
The Cougars (20-7) faced off against the Panthers (20-8) for the fourth time this season on Friday, May 15 after defeating them twice in the regular season. It seemed like they would do so once again.
After spotting the Panthers three runs in the first inning, junior pitcher Kayden Williams shut Chico down for the next five — only giving up two hits and zero runs.
The Cougars offense scored two in the second, two in the third to take the lead, and another two in the sixth to give them a 6-3 lead heading into the seventh and final inning of the game.
That’s when disaster struck for the Foothill Cougars. The cold Chico bats seemed to heat up, and the Panthers scored five runs to put them back up on top, 8-6.
The Panthers gave up one run in the bottom of the inning, but that was all the Cougars would get, and Chico walked away with a come-from-behind 8-7 win in a pivotal playoff matchup.
“We’re playing a good baseball team, and when you get into the final four in our playoffs, it’s a juggernaut,” Foothill manager Todd Buck said. “You got to get those 21 outs and we kind of let them off the hook a little bit and they got the job done, so you got to tip your cap.”
For Schwerdt, the only noticeable difference in that seventh inning was the energy. The Cougars were lively in the dugout all game encouraging their teammates and chirping with their opponents.
But, once the first couple hits started to drop in the seventh, the dugout lost its energy.
“In the middle of the seventh, once he started giving up hits, our energy just went down,” Schwerdt said. “We didn’t want to lose that. We knew we had to keep the energy up and we didn’t; we ended up getting the short end of the stick.”
Sometimes energy is the biggest difference maker in a game, and the Cougars learned that the hard way. Once the first Chico runner got on base in the seventh, the Panther dugout came to life while the Cougars seemed to lose their spark.
That momentum carried throughout the lineup, and it paid off for Chico.
Success despite the loss
Even though they didn’t come out on top, there were still some bright spots for Foothill to look back on. The bats were hot, even outhitting the Panthers 12-9, and four different Cougars had multi-hit games.
Williams, who gave up nine hits, seven earned runs and three walks to seven strikeouts in his 6.1 innings of work, was one of those bright spots on the Cougar offense. The junior went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a double at the plate.
“(Williams) was pretty dominant in the middle there, that’s why I let him finish,” Buck said. “He’s one of our horses, so you gotta run with them.”
Schwerdt also went 2-for-4 with two RBIs while juniors Colton Douglas and Brycen Thomas added three hits apiece. In total, six of the 10 Cougars that took an at-bat got a base knock.
However, it wasn’t enough to get the job done.
“The nice thing is we got another game on Tuesday,” Buck said. “We can just flush this one and move on.”
Looking forward
Despite the loss, the Cougars are still in the running for a section championship, but the path got a little harder.
All four Division II teams remaining will meet on Tuesday, May 19 at Pleasant Valley in the Super Regional round of the playoff tournament.
Chico and No. 1 Pleasant Valley, the victors from Friday afternoon’s first-round matchups, will face off for the chance to compete in the title game. On the other side of the bracket, Foothill will face No. 4 Las Plumas.
If Foothill defeats Las Plumas, they’ll face the loser of Pleasant Valley and Chico. The winner of that game will then go on to the section championship game.
Essentially, if Foothill defeated Chico, they would have needed just one more win to get to the championship game. Now, they need to win two.
Schwerdt, one of the top arms in the section, will take care of pitching duties for Foothill on Tuesday against Las Plumas.
Schwerdt has been dominant on the mound, posting a 0.72 ERA with 56 strikeouts in 48.1 innings this season.
First pitch is set for 10 a.m. with the winner moving on to play again at 4 p.m. All Division II games on Tuesday will be played at Pleasant Valley High School.
“This team battles; you saw it here. We gave them three early and we ended up coming back and putting four on them real quick,” Buck said. “Our goals are still in front of us.”
Brett Abrams is a sports reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. He covers high school and local sports in the Redding area. Reach out to Brett with any sports tips or news on X (formerly Twitter) @brabrams_ or by email at Brett.Abrams@Redding.com. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Foothill baseball suffers 7th inning collapse in playoff loss to Chico
Reporting by Brett Abrams, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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