MEXICO, Mo. -- The Fulton Hornets led through the first 4½ innings, but an error and the inability to capitalize with runners proved costly Thursday at Mexico High School.
Heading into the contest, the Mexico Bulldogs were coming off their most impressive win on paper this season: beating Eugene, which received votes in the Missouri High School Baseball Coaches Association's Class 2 poll, 3-2 in eight innings Tuesday in Mexico, Mo.
Unfortunately for Fulton, it was on the losing end of Highway 54 rival Mexico's most significant victory this year, falling 4-3 to the Bulldogs in a North Central Missouri Conference matchup.
On the contrary, it was the Hornets' first defeat against a team outside the state rankings. Fulton's two losses heading into Thursday were at Class 4 No. 2 Blair Oaks on Friday and at No. 4 Southern Boone on March 16.
"We lost the game; they didn't beat us," Fulton baseball coach Jacob Lorentzen said. "I don't know what happened. I don't know if we just weren't into it or the road trip last night got it -- not 100% sure where that was. We struggled a little bit on the mound, kind of just staying ahead of guys and falling around. I thought (Gage) Tiffany did a good job of managing a little bit of that around at first. We left the bases loaded twice."
A key statistic in Fulton (6-3, 3-1 NCMC) seeing its five-game winning streak against Mexico (6-6, 2-2) end was its eight runners left on base. The Hornets stranded the bases loaded in the fifth and left runners on second and third in the third inning.
"I think, unfortunately, we got into some bad counts," Lorentzen said. "I don't want to blame umpires or situations or what have, but I think we got into a lot of times where we were behind in the count, and that forced us not to necessarily put our best swings and be able to make some solid contact.
"We did a good job of just putting the ball in play. Unfortunately, with that, you don't get balls to go through the infield. You don't get line drives; you get pop-ups a little bit. I think we got put behind the eight ball tonight a lot in that case. Kudos for their pitching to do that, I guess, but I'm not 100% sure it was all pitching."
For one inning, the first, that wasn't an issue for Fulton. The Hornets jumped out to a 2-0 lead thanks to a Gabe DeFily RBI sacrifice fly to right field and a Justin Case RBI single to center.
After Mexico made it a one-run game in the bottom of the first when Drew DeMint scored on a wild pitch as Fulton walked Jaydon Eldrige, came a scoreless second before the Hornets brought their lead back to two.
With one out and the bases loaded, DeFily drove in the last of his game-high two RBI when he grounded into a fielder's choice at shortstop. This plated Wyatt Wilfley, who hit two singles in his first two at-bats and scored Fulton's first and final run.
That would be the turning point in the Hornets' batters making the most with runners in scoring position.
Following DeFily's fielder's choice, Fulton popped it out to second base and was called out on strikes, leaving the Hornets on second and third to end the top half of the third.
Although he couldn't get the run support he needed, Gage Tiffany, who leads the Hornets with three wins this season, kept them in the game when he was on the bump.
Tiffany pitched five innings, allowing three runs (two earned) on six hits and three walks while striking out two, preventing Mexico from registering an extra-base hit.
"He was not really loving the synthetic mound," Lorentzen said. "He couldn't quite get a feel. His shoes were slipping a lot, and so he was a little uncomfortable out there. But he did a good job battling through five innings and getting that chance to...keeping us in the game. I thought he did pretty good for not feeling necessarily the most comfortable up there."
Although the Bulldogs didn't notch an extra-base hit -- neither did the Hornets -- they outhit Fulton 7-6 and didn't commit an error while the visitors had two.
Fulton did have two multi-hit innings to Mexico's one, but that one two-hit Bulldog frame decided the ballgame.
Mexico's first three batters reached to start the bottom of the fifth, with Kaden Benne lining a leadoff single to center field, Samuel Ryan receiving a free pass and Ashton Belcher smacking a base hit to second.
Belcher's base hit didn't stop there. An overthrow by the Hornets' second baseman to first and one more misthrow allowed Benne and courtesy runner Hunter Burnett to score to tie it at 3.
Fulton did make three outs over the next four batters and prevented the Bulldogs from scoring another run in the fifth inning, but Mexico carried its momentum from that frame to the end of the game.
Even though the Hornets put it in play in five of the six at-bats, the Bulldogs sent Fulton down 1-2-3 in the sixth and seventh innings, and they got the run they needed to win the game in the sixth.
"We've been swinging it well; we swung it well yesterday," Lorentzen said. "But, today just wasn't quite the case. I thought we could have taken a little bit better ABs towards the end with this guy's pitch count getting up. But, these guys are baseball players, and they're looking to hunt strikes, and that's all I can ask them to do."
DeFily replaced Tiffany on the mound in the sixth, and a leadoff walk followed by a single was enough baserunners for Mexico with no more Bulldogs reaching that inning.
Taking advantage of the situation, Benne, the third Bulldog to bat in the sixth, sent one home on his sacrifice bunt, capping the run-scoring in a would've-could've-should've ballgame for the Hornets.
Fulton lost to Mexico for the first time in Lorentzen's second season at the helm.
The Hornets went 3-0 against the Bulldogs last year, including an NCMC triumph at Mexico, where they won the NCMC outright for the first time ever. Mexico won its first game against Fulton since its 7-1 victory on April 6, 2022, in Mexico, Mo.
"Everyone, every program kind of goes through that," Lorentzen said. "It does suck to kind of put all that on one week (losing to Mexico, dropping its first NCMC game in nearly a year and falling out of the state rankings). But maybe that means we just put all the bad in one week, and then we get ready to go for the rest of the season, and it's good from here on out. We're a program that knows what it's like to have come up from unknown in a spot where maybe people don't agree with us or they doubt us, and we come in and perform well when we get our heads on straight. Maybe it's all the bad's done in one week."
Ryan went the distance and earned the win for the win for the Bulldogs. In seven innings, he gave up three runs on six hits, three hit by pitches and two walks while punching out three.
DeFily (0-1) took the loss for Fulton, sending one packing and allowing one run on one hit and walk in an inning.
Hoping to end its three-game, three-day road stretch on a high note, the Hornets face Hannibal (6-4, 1-0 NCMC) at 5 p.m. today at Hannibal High School. Before Thursday, the Hornets' last NCMC loss was a 14-6 defeat to the Pirates last season on April 19 in Hannibal.
"With this loss here, it makes it a must (to beat Hannibal)," Lorentzen said. "If we don't win tomorrow, then our chances of repeating that conference title are pretty much void after that, at least in my opinion. It just puts a little more pressure on it to be a good win or be a win and play the best ball we have. We get a chance to get out there, know what we can continue to do, put runners out there, and hopefully, we can get a few more hits."