Bullpen collapse costs SFCC

The outs tend to run together when playing 13 games in 15 days. But SFCC baseball coach Rick Hitt won't soon forget the 10th inning Wednesday.

Two SFCC relievers combined to allow six runs in the top half of the 10th, spoiling a redemptive outing from Matt Schurig, and the Panthers lost in dispiriting fashion, 11-5 to Palm Beach State at wind-swept Panther Field.

"We're still very much a work in progress," Hitt said. "We've got a long way to go."

Especially in the bullpen, which twice surrendered the lead in the late innings, sending the Panthers to their second loss in six tries during this grueling 13-game stretch.

After blowing a one-run lead in the ninth, SFCC right-hander Andres Lopez gave up an RBI single to Josh Weinberg, who smoked a ball that dropped at the feet of left fielder Greg Smith, scoring the go-ahead run in the 10th.

Palm Beach (8-7) wasn't done, either. The Panthers got another run after an infield single - in which Lopez failed to cover first base - and after Hitt went back to the bullpen to insert left-hander Corey Topa, Ben Carhart delivered a wind-aided grand slam over the right-field wall, making it 11-5.

"With college kids and aluminum bats," Hitt said, "anything is possible."

Just ask Schurig, who faced a 4-0 deficit after he walked off the mound in the second inning. He surrendered a two-run homer in the first and the Panthers committed three errors in the second, leading to two more runs.

After that, he gave up just two hits, going eight strong innings and striking out five to keep SFCC (10-7) within reach.

"He knows how to pitch and he's got that intestinal fortitude," Hitt said of Schurig, who was well rested after missing three games last week due to illness. "He hates failure, and he believes in all of his stuff."

The Panthers overcame the early four-run deficit and took the lead, 5-4, in the eighth, after Brett Clements drove in a run and Cody Higgins, the No. 9 hitter, singled to right to score another.

Left-hander Brad Harrison was brought on in the ninth, tasked with preserving the one-run lead. But with no outs, Josh Weinberg homered off the scoreboard in left-center, tying the game at 5.

After Harrison was removed, Joe Kase proceeded to walk the bases loaded, but he battled back from a 3-0 count and wriggled out of the bases-loaded jam, inducing a sharp groundout to first to end the threat.

In the bottom of the ninth, SFCC had a chance to win it, after Tom Sicking singled, took second on a wild pitch and advanced to third on a groundout. But hot-hitting Taed Moses struck out swinging, stranding the potential winning run at third.

The Panthers never had another chance.

"We just need to do the little things right," said Hitt, whose Panthers committed four errors, three by Sicking, a middle infielder.

"A few of those things you can't really explain. You just have to sit back and ask yourself, 'Did that really just happen?'"