XENIA — It’s not every day where a baseball team can amass 12 base hits and lose, but that was the Xenia Scouts’ fate on Wednesday June 28 against the Richmond Jazz.
A dozen base hits wasn’t nearly enough for the Scouts in a 23-8 loss at Grady’s Field on the Athletes In Action Sports Complex grounds. That’s because Richmond had pounded out 20 hits and drawn 11 walks.
The Jazz smacked a pair of home runs — a two-run shot by Jordan Gillerman in the five-run third, and a three-run blast by Andrew Czech in the six-run seventh. They scored at least one run in every inning but the first and fourth.
A bright spot for Xenia might be that catcher Donald Ring’s bat came alive in the loss. Ring, out of Hillsdale College, was a perfect 4-for-4 at the plate with a walk. Mired in a 3-for-22 slump, the returning Scout collected three singles, bashed a no-doubt solo home run over the left-field fence, drove in two of Xenia’s runs and scored twice.
Clean-up hitter Chris Ackerman, another Hillsdale product, also had a good day. Ackerman went 3-for-4 with a single, double, three-run home run (in the seventh) and scored two other Scouts runs.
Richmond (9-6) finds itself just a half a game behind the Cincinnati Steam (10-6) for the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League’s South Division lead. Xenia had a chance to get its overall record to an even .500, but the lopsided loss derailed those plans a bit. The defending South champion Scouts are now 7-9 and three games behind Cincinnati.
The Scouts will host the defending GLSCL champion Hamilton Joes at 7:05 p.m. Friday June 30 at Grady’s Field for their next game. They’ll then open up July with a home and home series against Cincinnati on July 1 (in Cincy) and July 2 (at Grady’s Field).