Photos by Nick Henthorn Shadyside pitcher Luke Crozier throws a pitch Wednesday against the Union Local Jets. Crozier pitched the complete game in a 2-1 Tigers win.

MORRISTOWN — The Shadyside Tigers snuck one more ‘W’ in under the gun on Wednesday, defeating Union Local 2-1 for a road win on the final day before district cutoffs.

“Pitching, defense, that’s been our strong suit all year,” Shadyside head coach Jason Collins said. “We hit the ball pretty good today too. I’m proud of my kids, this being the last day before district cutoffs. It was big for us to get this win, and now we’ll find out where we’re seeded this weekend. Luke Crozier pitched a great game. All-around, that’s the way we’ve got to play baseball.”

Union Local took a quick 1-0 lead in the first inning after a base knock by Logan Hess drove in Colby Carpenter.

After that though, the pitching and defense of Collins’ squad held down the homestanding Jets, who tallied four hits as a team Wednesday.

Union Local pitcher Karson Grigaitis had a solid outing too, striking out six over a full seven innings of work, and limiting the Tigers to six hits.

Shadyside did all of their damage in the fourth. With runners on the corners, the umpiring crew called Grigaitis for a balk, bringing home Shadyside’s Damian Russell, who had two hits on the day.

Aaron Pacifico came up with a timely hit next, rocketing a shallow liner to center field and scoring Trenton Marling. Pacifico was thrown out trying to leg out a double, but his hit would still go down as the biggest of the evening.

Union Local made plenty of plus plays defensively, including two inning-ending double plays.

The first, coming in the fifth inning, saw Jets third baseman Hayden Jenkins field a ground ball, race to step on third for a force-out and fire a throw across the infield to first base to double up the Tigers. Then in the sixth, with one out and a man on second, shortstop Colby Carpenter plucked a linedrive before making a quick feed to second base to beat the retreating runner.

The offense couldn’t follow suit though, with Union Local making their final out on the basepaths to end the game.

“We just came out kind of lifeless,” Union Local head coach Jim Hess said. “Our pitcher Karson gave us a good game. We balked in a run and that led to another run. I thought for sure, when we scored the first one, ‘We’ll be able to go here.’ And it just never happened. We weren’t very selective at the plate, normally we’re pretty good about that. [Crozier] pitched a good ballgame against us, he kept us off-balance. We couldn’t get anything going, we run ourselves out of the seventh inning, just mental mistakes.”

In the waning days of the regular season, Ohio teams locked in their records on Wednesday night, with district tournament seeding expected to be released soon. The Tigers and Jets are hoping to be at their best when the postseason rolls around. District play-in games begin on the 19th of May.

“The past couple games we’ve definitely seen the ball better and put some better contact on the ball,” Collins said. “But our pitching and our defense has been solid all year. We’ve been in a lot of one, two-run games all year, that’s kind of been our team M.O.”

“Turn the page,” Hess said. “We’ve got a lot of big baseball games ahead of us. Think about this one tonight, let it sting like it should, and then go get Weir tomorrow night.”