Bucktail’s late comeback falls short in 6-5 loss to Neumann
By Bees O’Brien
FARWELL- Improvements are taking place inning by inning with the Bucktail baseball team and those slight improvements almost paid off on Tuesday night in the Bucks’ 2024 home opener. The Bucks would out hit visiting St. John Neumann 9 to 7, but a costly second inning and a late rally in the bottom of the seventh inning would fall short. This would allow the visiting Golden Knights to sneak out of Farwell with the 6-5 Mid Penn Conference victory.
Neumann took an early 1-0 in the top of the first inning, but the Bucks would battle back and tie things up in their half of the game’s opening inning.
Walks and errors would allow St. John Neumann to plate 4 runs in the top of the second inning to build a 5-1 lead.
Bucktail starting pitcher Braylon Fantaski did well on the bump by not allowing a single Neumann hit during his one and half innings of work. Freshman Keller Friese would come on in relief and he was money over the course of the final six-plus innings of work.
Friese would fan 9 Neumann batters and despite allowing a run in the top of the fifth inning, would silence Neumann’s offense. This would allow his squad to get back in the game. The Bucks managed to score a lone run in the bottom of the sixth inning to crawl to within 6-2.
Friese would shut down the Golden Knights in the top of the seventh to put his team in position to tie or possibly win in their half of the inning.
They nearly did just that.
The seventh inning rally began with an Ethan Kalafut walk. Austin Mosher would come in to pinch run for Kalafut. A Johnny Green single would advance Mosher to third base.Ethan Charcalla would knock in Mosher from third, which advanced Green to to third base.
Braylon Fantaski would wallop a triple to score Green, but Charcalla would be called out trying to advance to home.
Down 6-4, Brett Mason would keep the rally alive with a two-out single to score Fantaski to pull the Bucks to within 1 at 6-5.
Angelo Birch, the Neumann pitcher for the entire seven innings would get Keller Friese to fly out to end the game and preserve the St. John Neumann win.
Friese was stellar at the plate to for Bucktail. He would go 2 for 4 for Bucktail, with a pair of doubles. Fantaski led the Bucks at the plate with three hits, including his seventh-inning triple. Brett Mason also collected a pair of hits. Johnny Green and Ethan Charcalla rounded out the Bucktail hitting parade with a single apiece.
The Bucks, now 0-2 will be searching for their first win against District IV 1A finalists from a season ago in Benton at home on Thursday. The Tigers are 1-0 following a tough 1-0 win over Northwest on Tuesday afternoon.
Also at the game on Tuesday there will be an Easter egg hunt sponsored by the Bucktail booster club that will take place between the third and fourth innings. All children are invited to attend. Rumor has it that the Easter Bunny will take time out of his busy schedule to be at the game as well. Game time is set for 4:30.
