By Tim Taylor

For most of the baseball game on Wednesday, the CMS Trojans did not look like the same team that had started with five consecutive wins to start the season.

CMS came alive in the late innings, but ultimately the Trojans were doomed by five fielding errors in an 8-7 loss. Mt. Zion won behind 10 hits and error-free defense while CMS collected nine hits.

Trailing 6-0 in the bottom of the sixth, CMS finally scored, exploding for six runs to tie the score at 6.

Rohan Walters started the inning with a walk. After a batter fanned, Alex Matheny smashed a drive 40 feet over the left fielder’s head, with the ball rolling all the way to fence at the capacious home outfield of the Trojans. Matheny cruised into third and then scored on a wild pitch, making it 6-2.

Jacob Reed followed Matheny with a scorching triple in the right-center gap. Wyatt Gordon walked and advanced to third on a single by Brady Collins, which scored Jacob Reed and made it 6-3. Soren Flygare, running for catcher Gordon, scored on another wild pitch. Quinn Taylor walked on a fourth ball that was also a wild pitch and moved to second. Russ Applegate grounded out to shortstop to bring home Collins, and Ty Helton singled to drive in Taylor and make it 6-all.

After a scoreless seventh inning, the teams played the eighth in a tiebreaker where a runner starts at second base.

The Braves scored twice in the eighth.

After an error placed runners at second and third with no outs, Mt. Zion bunted to the pitcher, whose throw to the catcher could not catch the runner. After catcher Gordon picked off the runner at third, a Mt Zion liner careened off CMS’s shortstop to score another run and make it 8-6.

The Trojans had their chances to win in the bottom of the eighth but did not capitalize. Collins started out the inning with a single to shallow right to score runner Braxton Hanner from second. After a strikeout, Applegate hit a line drive to right and Helton followed with a hit over the second baseman to load the bases.

But a strikeout and a line-drive caught by the third baseman ended the game.

The Trojans, now 5-1, play host to Nuttall Middle School today.