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Sports

Tigers End A Tough Week On Down Note

The Tigers enjoyed the experience of playing at Blue Rocks Stadium, but left with a sour 6-3 loss to Garnet Valley.

Four games in four days is a schedule more attuned with what major college and major league baseball teams play. Not a high school team. But that’s exactly the spot was placed in this week, having to play four times, twice Wednesday, and conclude a long, arduous week against a very good Garnet Valley team.

Maybe it was fatigue of that grueling pace that surfaced Thursday in a rare treat of a game, as the teams got to play at Wilmington Blue Rocks Stadium. Unfortunately for Marple Newtown, the experience of playing in a minor league ballpark was tarnished by a 6-3 defeat.

The Tigers saw their pristine 6-0 overall record at the start of the week plummet to 7-3 overall, with nonleague losses to Haverford School (7-6) and Malvern Prep (11-4), buffered by the completion of a suspended game that resulted in a Marple Newtown 10-3 victory over Penncrest on Wednesday.

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The consolation of the 1-3 week is that the Tigers still sit at 6-1 in the Central League. What smarts is that their one league loss is to Garnet Valley, and it didn’t exactly come on a day when Marple Newtown played its best.

Garnet Valley scored three unearned runs, two in the first inning after Tigers’ starting pitcher Garrett Wrambel retired the first two batters of the game. A hit batter, a throwing error and a triple led to a 2-0 Garnet Valley lead.

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The Jaguars tacked on two more runs in the fifth, one unearned. Overall, it was tough day.

Still, Joe Kelly went 3-for-4, Kurt Johnson knocked in a run, and leftfielder Scott Todd went 2-for-3 with a triple and two runs batted in.

Strikeouts, however, were endemic all afternoon. The Tigers went down seven times, four times looking, including the last inning with two outs and the bases loaded.

It was a perfect storm of uncharacteristic plays that couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“We’re shutting it down for the next three days,” Tigers’ coach Steve Smith said. “We didn’t speak much about today; we were a tired and frustrated team and it’s time we circle the wagons a little bit. I learned we’re not magic or invincible this week.”

Smith did stress that he learned he does have something in senior catcher Carmen Scota, who picked off a runner and has been steady throughout the year. Catching was a concern at the beginning of the season, it doesn’t appear to be now.

But with one question answered, this week spawned more that need to be addressed.

“We just didn’t have it today, and we know we’re definitely better than how we played,” Todd said. “It was great playing in a stadium like this, but you want to leave with a better memory. We’re going to take a few days off and give some guys some rest. We’ll practice hard Monday and clear our brains on Tuesday when we play Ridley.”

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