U. City's Baseball Season Ends With Extra-Inning Playoff Loss At Ritenour

OVERLAND — It was a day of good and bad for the boys baseball team.

The Lions played a dynamite first few innings, and enjoyed a 4-0 lead Saturday morning, in their MSHSAA Class 4 District 5 playoff opener against host Ritenour High School.

Unfortunately though, the bad was U. City couldn't hold onto that lead, nor could it maintain the 6-5 edge it had going into the final inning of regulation play, before eventually losing their first round playoff matchup to the Huskies, 7-6, in 10 innings.

"It's disappointing," U. City baseball coach Rick Seim said. "We had our chances to win this game, and we just didn't capitalize. I thought we played a pretty good game against a pretty good team, we just didn't close it out when we had the chance."

And that chance came in the seventh inning, when U. City led 6-5, and just needed three final outs to secure its first state tournament playoff win since 2007.

Junior starting pitcher Matt Looby battled through the first six innings, and was in line to get the win for the Lions.

But Seim went with reliever Jamal Plair, hoping to get those last three outs.

"(Matt) was pretty much maxed out," Seim said. "He'd thrown a lot of pitches and got us out of some tough situations. I just thought he was done. We're a bit thin on pitching, and I was proud to see Jamal step up and take the ball for us at the end of the game like that."

Unfortunately, Plair couldn't get those three outs, as the Huskies loaded the bases with two outs, and got a game-tying single up the middle from junior Danny Huff.

Plair did get out of the inning though, giving U. City a chance to possibly win the game in extra innings.

But that plan didn't work out either, as the Lions only managed one baserunner in the eighth, ninth, and 10th innings, and were never able to generate another good scoring chance.

Ritenour had its troubles in extra innings as well, as Plair settled down cruised through the eighth and ninth innings after allowing the game to be tied in the seventh.

In the 10th though, Plair got a little wild and it cost him.

He walked Ritenour's No. 9 hitter, Tre Grigsby, who then stole second with the top of the Huskie lineup coming up. U. City intentionally walked leadoff man Sean Anderson to set up a possible double play situation.

But that play never came to fruition, as Ritenour's Matt Key lined a single to center that scored Grigsby to win the game for the Huskies.

"It's a tough game," Seim said. "I'm proud of how these kids played out here today though."

The loss means U. City will end the season with a 4-20 record — a disappointing year for sure, but Seim was pleased with the progress his Lions made throughout the season.

"It was a tough year, and we lost some tough games," Seim said. "But these kids always worked hard and always tried to get better. That's really all you can ask from any kid.

"I am going to miss (the) three seniors, Nate King, Kevin Phillips, and C.J. (Chris Jones). Those kids have been here longer than I have. And they've done nothing but try to make our baseball program better."

Ritenour improved to 12-12 on the year, and will play No. 1 seed SLUH in the district semifinals, on Monday at SLUH.

The winner of that game will then play the winner of the district's other semifinal contest, Chaminade versus Ladue, in the district championship game at Ritenour High on Tuesday, May 15, at 4:15 p.m.  

Score by Inning   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10  -  R   H   E

University City     0   1   3   0   0   2   0   0   0    0   -  6   9   3

Ritenour               0   0   2   3   0   0   1   0   0    1   -  7  10  1