Ephrata baseball rolls Cedar Crest, 11-1

The result stung familiar and the lesson it carried did, too.

Mix a slight lack of pitching control with a few errors and too many whiffs at the plate and you’ll quickly land in the loss column.

That landing came sooner than expected for the Cedar Crest baseball team at home Wednesday.

Ephrata handed the Falcons an 11-1 defeat in six innings, scoring in every frame but the first. Cedar Crest starter Nate Cavic was knocked out with the bases loaded in the third, having doled out a combined seven walks and hit-by-pitches. The Falcons’ Nate Trovinger collected two hits in his varsity debut and the team’s lone RBI.

Cedar Crest (2-9, 1-6 Section One) moves on to a rescheduled date with McCaskey on Thursday, which could potentially keep the blue and white in contention for a league playoff spot.

"We've been in seven of our nine losses where we were better than the other team but the runs didn't show it because we're walking guys, we're booting balls and shooting ourselves in the foot,” Falcons coach Josh Brown said. “If I think about it as a coach that way, that lets me know and reminds me that we're young."

Young and restless at the plate, where Mounts starter Matt McGillan kept them guessing with a heavy does of first-pitch curveballs, despite eight Cedar Crest hits. McGillan tossed a complete game, slipping out of a second-and-third, one-out jam in the bottom of the sixth to draw early curtains. The only damage Gillan took registered in the fourth when he allowed Trovinger to drive in Joe Carpenter on two-out single to right.

But by then, the Falcons still trailed 6-1.

The sophomore outfielder, who had a few varsity practices under his belt, kept a simple approach in his first game action.

"I was just trying to stay relaxed with it being my first time up,” Trovinger said. “Down on JV it's a lot different, and I was just trying not to get overwhelmed with the hype of coming up. I was just trying to relax, stay focused and stick to the fundamentals."

Ephrata’s Evan Frees totaled three RBIs, first boosting the Mounts (9-2, 7-1 Section Two) to a four-run edge after three, when Luke Brunelli relieved Cavic. Two more Cedar Crest hurlers then followed, but there was little anyone could do to stop a rolling Ephrata lineup.

The Falcons’ only move now, it seems, is to take their lessons and apply them Thursday against the Red Tornadoes.

"All I know is we need to win and we need to do our best," Trovinger said.