SYRACUSE – Wednesday’s Northern Lakes Conference baseball game between the Plymouth Pilgrims and the host Wawasee Warriors was a pitchers duel with contrasting performances. Plymouth senior Braydon Davidson was consistently falling behind hitters in the count, while Wawasee sophomore Jacob Garcia got ahead most of the time. It might seem obvious which pitcher flirted with a no-hitter. Davidson lost his bid for a no-hitter when Garcia had an infield single with no outs in the seventh in the Pilgrims’ 5-2 win over the Warriors. The wily Plymouth upperclassman faced just three hitters over the minimum over the first five innings. He walked five Warriors and struck out six in pitching a complete game. Meanwhile, in each of the first two innings Garcia allowed a pair of runners after two were out, but escaped without any damage and blanked the Pilgrims for the first four innings. Plymouth broke through in the fifth inning, courtesy of an infield single, a pair of errors on the same play and a sacrifice fly. “When (Garcia) got ahead he did very well,” Wawasee head coach Brent doty said. “He had a couple of walks here and there, but that’s to be expected on a cold night; it’s tough to control location and stuff like that. “He threw a great game for us. We just have to come up with some timely hits and find a way to get a couple of more runs pushed across.” Wawasee answered in the bottom of the inning when Davidson surrendered a pair of two-out walks to Reider Hunley and Spencer Prescott. They advanced a base on a double steal, and Hunley scored on a wild pitch. Doty pulled Garcia after he opened the sixth with a walk. Plymouth added a run in the inning with two more walks and a hit batsman. The Pilgrims added two more insurance runs in the seventh. Wawasee scratched a run across in the seventh when Lucas Garza reached on an error and Garcia broke up the no-hitter with his infield single. Garza advanced to third on a fielder’s choice and scored on another wild pitch by Davidson. Of the seven runs scored in the game, only three had the benefit of a base hit. After starting the season 2-0-1, Wawasee now has an eight-game losing streak fell to 3-10-1 overall and 0-5 in the NLC. “I thought our guys battled, had good at-bats and hit a few balls hard, but just couldn’t find a hole,” Doty said. “But we need to hit just a little bit better and we can get this thing turned around.” The Warriors will host Goshen at 5 p.m. Friday.
