It was a rough day for the Mission Bears on Thursday as they took a disappointing 9-3 loss against the Marshall Phoenix. Nothing in the game really went Mission’s way.
It was Mission’s second loss to Marshall in two days.
The main factor in today’s defeat was the Bears’ glove work.
Mission committed an immense total of 11 errors. Out of the nine runs scored, only three were earned.
Despite the big win for Thurgood Marshall, the team’s head coach, Gerald Rankin, was unhappy with his ball club’s level of play.
“What did we do well? Not too well all around,” said Rankin, shaking his head.
“All around we didn’t play that good. A lot of base-running errors. We executed all right, but I don’t think we had a good game.”
The biggest mark on the game was from Marshall’s starting pitcher, Javier Meza, who threw a gem. He went all the way for a complete game of 7 innings while striking out 16 Mission batters and allowing only three runs.
“Our pitcher kept us in the ball game. Other than that, we really didn’t play that well. Yesterday we played much better,” Rankin concluded.
It was just last year that these two schools squared off against each other during the last week of the regular season. Mission and Marshall had an identical record of 5-8 coming in. The teams split a two-game series, but Marshall received the ticket to the playoffs because Mission had lost to a weaker seed earlier in the season.
The Bears, who are contending for a playoff spot again this year, could have used a victory on Thursday. They currently hold the second spot in the Division B standings, behind Marshall. June Jordan is just a half-game behind them, however. These two teams will face off against each other in a two-game series next week. It will be the last week of scheduled baseball, as the competition to make the playoffs comes down to the very last contest.