ROCHESTER – A pair of 4-2 losses ended the Austin baseball team’s season on Monday at Mayo Field.

Tuesday, May 30, 2000

ROCHESTER – A pair of 4-2 losses ended the Austin baseball team’s season on Monday at Mayo Field.

The Packers (10-12) first fell to John Marshall, then to Rosemount in an elimination game.

Defense was the order of the day at Mayo Field, where Austin watched as Sam Everson saved his Mayo Spartans from elimination with a sensational diving stab at third base that kept the Spartans in their game.

Mayo went on to win and will face Eagan with a Section 1AAA final four berth on the line.

After Mayo’s survival game, the Packers and Rockets proceeded to up the ante in an errorless, airtight affair.

The game turned in the fifth inning, when four straight John Marshall singles plated a pair of runs, breaking open a 2-1 game.

The inning would have been worse had it not been for Austin centerfielder Jamie Morrison.

With runners at the corners, JM’s Joe MaGee pasted a two-strike offering from Austin starter Joe Huffman. The ball sailed into the left-center gap as Morrison closed hard. The junior – timing perfectly his play on the ball – then reached across his body with his glove hand, left his feet and snared the drive before rolling with his glove hand and the ball held high.

Earlier in the game, Morrison fell victim to defensive thievery, when third baseman Don Lichty ranged deep to his left to corral what looked to be a seeing-eye single off Morrison’s bat.

Lichty spun and gunned down Morrison at first, turning a potential one-out two-on situation into a harmless threat.

Austin plated one in the third on Mark Toov’s RBI single. Toov, after having fouled a ball hard off his left leg, returned to the batter’s box hobbled and delivered the next pitch into centerfield to score the run.

The 1-0 lead lasted until the fourth, when MaGee’s double down the rightfield line plated two.

Austin, trailing 4-1, rallied for a run in its final at-bat. Three walks and a pair of hits – a single by Andy Klapperick and a double by Toov – plated a run and loaded the bases for the Packers.

But, a groundout to first base ended the potential Austin rally.

The Packers went on to lose a late game to Rosemount.