Vs. Capitals 180 (7/22)
When the Capitals came to play on Tuesday at Gant Municipal Stadium. The Capitals took the lead in the first inning with a single by Meade to step out 1 – 0. The Junior Pioneers finally answered back with a run off a single by Brody Hammersley that allowed Daugherty to score, tying the score at 1. The Capitals rallied in the top of the 4th for four runs, taking the lead back at 5 – 1. The Pioneers grabbed a run in the bottom of the inning when #17 hit a one-run homer to start the inning, narrowing the deficit to 5 – 2. The Capitals landed another run in the top of the 5th inning, and the Pioneers kept battling but only managed another run in the bottom of the 7th on a sacrifice fly from Hammersley that brought in Zane Sarcheck, but it wasn’t enough to get them out of the 6 – 3 loss.
Vs. TNT College 2025 (doubleheader 7/21)
The Junior Pioneers traveled to meet up with TNT on Monday for a doubleheader. To start game one, the two teams struggled to get off the ground with TNT taking the first lead in the bottom of the 3rd inning when they grabbed two runs for a 2 – 0 lead. The Pioneers answered back in the bottom of the inning with a double from Noah Blecha that drove home a run to narrow the gap to 2 – 1. TNT matched the Pioneers with a run in the bottom of the inning to increase their lead to 3 – 1. Jake Valentine singled in the top of the 5th to bring in Caleb Campbell, followed by a ground ball from 17 to bring home Brady Kaufman to tie the game at 3. The TNT would not let that hold as they doubled their score in the bottom of the inning with a three-run rally to take the lead back at 6 – 3. They bolstered their lead in the bottom of the 6th with two more runs, leading 8 – 3. Despite Hammersley scoring on a wild pitch in the top of the 7th, they could manage any more runs and fell to TNT in game one, 8 – 4.
At the start of game two, it looked like the Pioneers were on the right track to take the game from the start with Konner Daugherity stepping up to the plate in the top of the 1st to smash a two-run homer into right field to take a quick 2 – 0 lead over TNT. However, TNT came back in the bottom of the inning to blow open the batting order with seven runs, followed by a two-run homer by Weaver to take the lead at 9 – 2. In the top of the second inning, Weston Hartman grounded into a fielder’s choice, allowing #17 to score their third run. Scoring stalled for a few innings until Smith scored on a passed ball for TNT, giving them a 10 – 3 advantage.
In the top of the 5th, the Pioneers scored Blecha off of a single by Hammersley, followed by Kaufman’s single to left field to bring home Thornberry, shortening the TNT lead to 10 – 5. Weaver hit a two-run homer for TNT in the bottom of the 6th to lead 12 – 5. In the top of the 7th, Thornberry singled to right to bring in Blecha, Hammersley hit a sacrifice to bring home Daugherity, and Campbell singled to left to allow Thornberry to cross home plate closing in on TNT to the tune of 12 – 8, but they fell short of tying up the game and TNT walked away with the win and the clean sweep of the Pioneers for the day.