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NEW KNOXVILLE — The Rangers of New Knoxville scored four runs in the third frame and made those tallies stand up downing the Jefferson Wildcats 4-3 in a non-conference baseball contest in New Knoxville Thursday evening.
With one down in the fateful third, Derek Dicke doubled to right-center field against Jefferson starter Josh Miller and took third on a Jake Lawler single to left. A ground-rule 2-bagger by Caleb Allen scored Dicke, tied the tilt at 1 and put Lawler on third base. Bill Ray tripled home Allen and Lawler. Then Ray made one of the most exciting plays in baseball as the Power Ranger (thanks, Channel 44 Sports) third baseman stole home, getting under the tag of catcher Jordan Jettinghoff. That was enough for Wildcat mentor Troy Montenery, as Sean Fisher replaced Miller on the hill.
“Ray’s triple got the runs in,” Ranger coach John Meinerding commented. “Dicke got a double to start us out and Jake singled and Caleb doubled. We can’t be satisfied with one big inning.”
Fisher shut down the New Knoxville hitters from that point on as he allowed just a single to center field by Rohr in the third frame.
“Sean held them; our pitching and defense did things right. We had fresh arms in the bullpen,” Montenery noted. “New Knoxville did what they had to do. They strung together three hits off Josh.”
“We had a lot of runners on base but they (Jefferson) got out of it,” Meinerding commented.
With one down in the Wildcat fifth inning, Cory Bastian urged a full-count walk off Zach Leffel, advanced to second on a Miller single to left and took third on a base-on-balls to Fisher. Bastian copied Ray’s feat, stealing home. Miller took third and Fisher advanced to second as Ranger reliever Brad Piehl  uncorked a wild pitch. Miller scored when Rohr threw late to first base when Chris Wilkin was at bat. However, Piehl struck our Mike Rahrig and retired Jettinghoff on a pop-up to end the frame.
With one gone in the Wildcat seventh, Miller singled to right field and Fisher coaxed a 4-pitch free pass from Piehl. Piehl, however, induced Wilkin to pop out and fanned Rahrig to end the contest.
“We were not sharp,” Montenery concluded. “Maybe it was the day off from school. It seemed like we had guys get to second base but we didn’t get the big hit. We had poor at-bats. We had a lot of pop-ups and strikeouts. We didn’t do things consistently. That did us in tonight.”
In the top of the first frame, Aaron Schuerman walked to begin the tilt, was advanced to second on an error by Leffel and scored on a Miller RBI single to center field.
“We have a lot of freshman and sophomores,” Meinerding concluded. “They need to develop. We need to get them positive so they can compete in the Midwest Athletic Conference.”
Jefferson slips to 10-9 in all contests and will attempt to have a winning 2007 season as they finish the campaign with a non-conference contest at 5 p.m. Monday at Wildcat Field, hosting the Pioneers of Lima Temple Christian.
The New Knoxville nine improves to 5-14 and will journey to Coldwater to take on the Cavaliers in a makeup MAC contest at 5 p.m. Monday.

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