It took Westminster's seniors a few minutes before they retreated from the baseball diamond Wednesday evening.
After a county championship and a strong regular season, this wasn't the end to their careers they were expecting. Especially not after the first four innings of the Class 3A West Section 1 final against visiting Damascus.
Yet, here the handful of players were, dishing out long hugs, pats on the back and fighting back tears amid Westminster's coaching staff following a 13-4 loss.
"It's definitely very, very disappointing," Owls senior infielder Brandon Martin said. "The whole entire team had high hopes for this year and, especially throughout the year, we thought we could've had a chance at states this year, and we tried for it."
There were two moments in Wednesday's loss that Martin defined as "momentum killers" for the Owls (16-4).
The first was a Swarmin' Hornets rally in the top of the fifth. Westminster led 4-0 after Martin had a pair of RBI doubles, and Ryan Mills and Bradley Moore each collected RBI singles.
Owls senior starter Justin Buberl had allowed just two hits in the first four scoreless frames. Then after issuing a leadoff single to Grant Buttrey, Swarmin' Hornets catcher Elliott Brown belted a two-run home run to straight-away center field.
Later in the inning, Ethan Wentzlaff hit a go-ahead, three-run homer off of Westminster junior reliever Justin Cotter to put Damascus (14-7) ahead 6-4.
"They hit the ball; they took advantage of their opportunities," said Owls coach Mark Winebrunner, whose team hasn't won a region title in the past five seasons.
The second "momentum killer" happened in the bottom of the sixth, when Westminster had its best opportunity to answer.
The Owls loaded the bases with one out with Buberl and Martin up, their No. 2 and No. 3 hitters. However, Buberl grounded into a fielder's choice at home plate, and Martin popped out to second base to end the scoring threat without a run.
"I thought we were going to have it, I thought we were going to come back," Martin said. "It's just one of those moments you wish you could have back."
Damascus piled on seven more runs in the seventh against Cotter. The Swarmin' Hornets sent 11 batters to the plate and capitalized on Westminster's only three errors of the game.
During that rally, George Lowe had a bunt RBI single on a suicide squeeze attempt. When Connor Manion tried it the next at-bat, Cotter threw the ball past the catcher Moore to allow another pair of runs to score.
Manion struck out all three Westminster batters in the seventh to end the game.
"We let it get away from us," Winebrunner said. "We didn't take advantage of our opportunity."
Before losing to Damascus, Westminster had only allowed more than nine runs in a game twice this season — and one of those was an 11-10 win over Manchester Valley on April 22.
The Owls won their first county championship since 2013 on May 7 when they beat Francis Scott Key in the county title game. They had lost just three games all season entering Wednesday, having won 10 of their last 11.
"We were really proud of them — 16-4 is nothing to hang your head about; we won the county," Winebrunner said. "This isn't how we expected this game to end, but I told them, 'Only one team gets to go home happy and unfortunately, it wasn't us.' "
Damascus 000 060 7 — 13 10 1
Westminster 102 100 0 — 4 9 3
D-Ethan Wentzlaff, Tyler Retherford (4), Connor Manion (5) and Elliott Brown; W-Justin Buberl, Justin Cotter (5) and Bradley Moore. 2B: W-Brandon Martin 2, Ryan Mills, Nathan Raver. HR: D-Brown, Wentzlaff. WP: Retherford. LP: Cotter.
jake.rill@carrollcountytimes.com
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