Late-Inning Errors Doom Brentwood

Brentwood's effective hitting and pitching was overshadowed by sloppy defensive play on Tuesday night as St. Pius X stole a win in extra innings at . Brentwood lost 17-7 in nine innings.

Holding a 7-6 lead over St. Pius in the seventh with one runner on and one out, Brentwood was on its way to winning the game. A soft grounder to third was misplayed by junior Kevin Smith, allowing runners at first and second. Smith's error was followed by another as pitcher Jesse Sneed fielded a bunt but overthrew the ball to first base, allowing one runner to score and tie the game. Brentwood would escape the inning without any extra damage.

But the offensive firepower that gave Brentwood seven runs earlier in the game was nonexistent in extra innings. St. Pius, however, more than doubled its score in a demoralizing ninth inning that Brentwood wasn't able to match.

After the game, Brentwood coach Mike Imergoot said mental errors hurt his team during the game.

"You reach a point where you can't continually give a team five or six outs an inning. We had a lot of that today," he said. "We won six innings of this game and we lost one inning. And that cost us the ballgame."

But Imergoot was happy with his team's offensive performance. Senior Ryan Marshall went 3-4 with two walks and two RBIs, senior Ryan Jones went 3-5 with an RBI and Smith went 2-4 with two RBIs. Jones also pitched 4 1/3 innings before he was pulled because of a high-pitch count, Imergoot said.

The Eagles at 6 p.m. on Wednesday before traveling to this weekend.