Triton takes Chapel Hill baseball down 5-2 in 8 innings

After Triton scored two runs in the top of the first inning, Chapel Hill coach Lee Land implored his team to keep zeroes up on the board the rest of the way.

The Tigers, who eventually tied the game, kept Triton scoreless for the next six innings but then gave up three more runs in the top of the eighth before losing 5-2 to end their season in the first round of the N.C. High School Athletic Association 3-A baseball playoffs.

Triton starting pitcher Aaron Hedgepeth got the win. He went 7-1/3 innings before reaching his pitch count limit and giving way to teammate Adam Capps, who earned the save. Hedgepeth also had the key hit for Triton, knocking in Grayson Bradham in the top of the eighth for the go-ahead, game-winning run.

"My teammates got me that win," Hedgepeth said. "I asked them to give me a run or two and they did to start the game. The first two runs changed the whole game because who knows what would have happened if we hadn't scored those two runs."

Triton took advantage of a slow start by Chapel Hill starting pitcher Tyler Hansen, who issued a pair of walks in the first inning and gave up a single that led to two runs. But after that, Hansen allowed only two more hits and only on Triton runner reached second base.

"They didn't hit a ball out of the infield in the first inning and scored two runs," Chapel Hill coach Lee Land said. "The first two runs, we gave it to them."

While Chapel Hill was keeping Triton off the scoreboard, the Tigers, who Land described as a good hitting team, struggled against Hedgepeth.

"He just executed well against us," Land said. "We kept hitting the ball off the end of the bat and never made the adjustments we needed to make. We were a good hitting team all year. We just didn't bring the bats tonight. Credit their pitcher."

Chapel Hill finally got a run in each of the fifth and six innings to tie the game up at 2-2.

Land said those two runs came because of some timely hitting.

"We didn't get enough situational hitting," Land said. "We did in the innings we scored but we left runners on third two or three times with less than two outs and didn't get them in."

After Adam Guskiewicz reached on a throwing error by Triton catcher Grayson Bradham, he eventually scored on a two-out bunt by Tyler Tachman to get the Tigers on the scoreboard to make it 2-1.

In Chapel Hill's next turn at the plate, Colin Liebe was hit by pitch to start the bottom of the sixth. After Liebe stole second, Ryan Lonegan followed with a chopper to third that Triton's Bryce Starling couldn't field cleanly to give Chapel Hill runners on first and second with no outs. The Tigers then got two sacrifice flies. The first came from Anthony Castellano, which moved Liebe to third, and then the other from by Drew Govert, that allowed Liebe to score and tie the game at 2-2.

Hedgepeth dug struck out the side for Chapel Hill in the seventh before delivering his game-winning RBI hit in the top half of the eighth. Triton went on to add two more runs to go up 5-2.

Hedgepeth returned to the mound for Chapel Hill's turn in the bottom of the eighth and got Tachman to strike out, the fourth in a row for Hedgepeth before he reached his pitch limit. He then swapped positions with first baseman Adam Capps, who finished off the game despite allowing Chapel Hill to load the bases. The final out came as Capps struck out Govert.

Chapel Hill finished its season with a 19-6 mark. Triton (15-8) continues its season at Topsail in a rematch of last season's third-round game that Topsail won 7-1.

"I thought both teams really battled out there," Triton coach Joey Miriello said. "It could have gone either way. Both pitchers did a good job. We just got some big hits late in the game and that was the difference."

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 1:29 AM with the headline "Triton takes Chapel Hill baseball down 5-2 in 8 innings."