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Broken home plate pauses Gettysburg vs. Littlestown baseball


For the third time already this season, Gettysburg started a baseball game that it was unable to finish. This time, it had nothing to do with weather or darkness.

Tied 1-1 in the top of the eighth at Littlestown, home plate broke away from its anchor in the ground and the game was suspended when it was unable to be fixed.

Gettysburg's Jay Geesaman led off the inning with a groundout to second, and following the play, there was a gathering of umpires and both head coaches and it was determined that the game would have to be stopped when home plate couldn't be reattached.

"I texted our athletic director (Jeff Laux) about it being loose today," Littlestown head coach Todd Gantz said. "We hoped to get the game in and then have it fixed tomorrow before our next home game. Unfortunately, we couldn't get this one in."

The game will be picked up at a time and date to be determined.

Littlestown (5-0) was on the verge of taking a loss for the first time this season when the Thunderbolts rallied to score the tying run in the bottom of the seventh.

Trailing 1-0, Lane Nye led off the inning with a double to left-center, and after Russell Livesay was unable to bunt him to third, Livesay lined a single to right field that plated Nye with the tying run and Livesay took second on the throw home.

A pop out and fly out failed to move courtesy runner Justin Griffin up, then Jacob Owings almost won the game, but his sinking liner to right field was hauled in with a dive by Gettysburg right fielder Tyler Martin to end the inning.

The two hits in the seventh for the Bolts matched their production from the first six innings combined as they got just two hits in the opening six frames off of Gettysburg pitcher Luke Wlazlak. Those knocks were back-to-back singles in the bottom of the second by Nye and Jacob Crawmer.

"Luke has thrown well for us this year," Gettysburg head coach Ryan Brady said. "We didn't help him out a lot. Our defense made some plays behind him, but we made some mistakes that need to be cleaned up."

Wlazlak worked all seven innings for Gettysburg and allowed one run on four hits with nine strikeouts and no walks. He threw 63 of 93 pitches for strikes.

"Wlazlak was painting the corners all day," Gantz said. "I felt like we did start to get to him a little bit late in the game. But he was very tough."

Livesay threw the first seven frames for the hosts and allowed one unearned run on four hits with five strikeouts and one walk.

Gettysburg (0-4) scored its only run of the day in the second inning with a two-out rally that started with a Dave Buxton single. Courtesy runner Chet Brockett then stole second before Ethan Ketterman reached on a fielding error. A throwing error allowed Brockett to come in to score.

The visitors also threatened in the fourth when they loaded the bases with two down in the fourth, only to get a runner thrown out in run down to end the inning.

Gettysburg hopes to complete one of its suspended games at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday when it resumes a game at Delone Catholic that was tied 1-1 after 10 innings. Meanwhile, the Bolts get back to action against York Suburban at 4:15 p.m. Thursday.