The fourth-seeded Griffin baseball team (19-10) lost their first game of the NSAA Class B State Baseball Championships on Saturday to the fifth-seeded Gross Catholic Cougars (22-6) 4-2 after a seventh-inning comeback effort fell short for the Griffins.

Pitcher, junior Chase Neneman started the game for the Griffins, striking out three batters over four innings. The game remained 0-0 until both the Cougars and the Griffins scored in the fourth inning, with the Cougars scoring three runs and the Griffins scoring one. The Griffins’ run came from senior center fielder Jensen Albers, who stole second on the previous pitch and made it home thanks to a hit from junior left fielder Carter Woodson. 

Taking over for the fifth inning, junior Drew Baratta pitched two strikeouts and allowed a run, giving the Cougars a 4-1 lead heading into the sixth inning. 

“We had runners in scoring position for most of the game,”  assistant coach Matthew Renshaw said. “Sometimes, the balls just don’t fall.”

Senior Drew Dowd closed out the final two innings of the game with zero runs allowed and one strikeout. The Griffins got their second and final run of the day in the bottom of the sixth, with courtesy runner senior Nolan Iverson making it home after stealing third.

“I knew I had to find some way to score, being down three,” Iverson said.

In the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs, loaded bases and the game on the line, senior catcher Carson Herrmann hit a deep ball to left field, which was caught by Gross left fielder Robbie Brennan to end the game and hand the Griffins their first loss of the tournament.

“I mean, if you look at the box score, we had eight hits, it’s just that we couldn’t chain them together at the right times,” Woodson said.

Although the Griffins out-hit the Cougars eight to four, the difference came down to committing six errors compared to the Cougars’ one.

“It’s easy to point at the scoreboard, and, well, six errors,” Renshaw said. “I mean, if you ever do that, it doesn’t help your chances of winning. But we were in the game in the end.”

Entering the loser’s bracket, the Griffins will face the No. 8-seeded Lincoln Pius X Thunderbolts (11-12) today at Papillion La-Vista High School’s Fricke Field at 9:00 a.m in a win-or-go-home matchup.

“It’s just another baseball game,” Renshaw said. “We’ll go out, and we’ll play like we’ve always done. It doesn’t matter who we play; we could play the Storm Chasers, it doesn’t matter.”