Unioto is unable to overcome their defensive mistakes, leading them to fall to Sheridan

ATHENS — As crisp as the Unioto Sherman Tanks were during this season, they were unable to overcome their defensive lapses against the Sheridan Generals in the Division II district semifinals.

In their 6-1 losing effort, the team committed four errors, which allowed the Sheridans to take control of the game late.

"We did not play well enough," Unioto coach, Tony Taylor said. "The four games we lost this season, we had about four or five errors. So, those are just the facts about how you win or lose a game. Hats off to them [Sheridan] for making the plays when they needed to."

As one would expect, the game began as a defensive affair.

The Generals scored the game's first run in the opening inning after an RBI single by Coyle Withrow.

For the next two innings, the dueling pitchers, Unioto's Andrew Griffin and Sheridan's Sam Taylor gave opposing hitters little to work with.

Griffin and his fellow defenders played cleanly and even in the cases that runners got on base, they found themselves stranded.

Taylor and his troops had a similar effect on the Shermans, where they struggled to mount much of an offense either.

Things began to look up for Unioto in the fourth inning when they managed to tie the game.

After Griffin hit a triple, he was brought home after a sac-fly by Andrew Lemaster.

However, just as it seemed that momentum was shifting into the Shermans' favor, the Generals' offense had been re-invigorated.

It all began in the fifth inning when they scored two runs.

The first was after another RBI single by Withrow and then the next came after an error by Unioto that allowed Caden Sheridan enough time to reach home from third base.

After committing two errors in the fifth inning, the Shermans' mistakes did not end there.

This time around, they committed two more errors and the Sheridans added three more runs to their lead.

To Unioto's dismay, they were unable to respond with any runs of their own in the seventh inning, which capped off their difficult loss.

While it was difficult for the team to relish in it at the moment, the team will bring back the majority of their promising roster next season after graduating just two seniors, Ben Spetnagel and Nick Cash.

Coach Taylor acknowledged this and said that he expects even bigger things for next year's squad.

"It is tough when you lose two seniors, but I wish them the best and appreciate the dedication they had to this program," Taylor said. "But we have a lot of kids coming back next year and most of them are starters. So, we should be better than we were this year."

This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Unioto falls to Sheridan in the Division II district semifinals