<p>MORRISTOWN</p>
<p>Despite his players striking out 20 times, Edinburgh baseball coach Jason Burton knew his team gave itself a chance to win.</p>
<p>The Lancers rallied from a 4-1 deficit to send the game to extra innings before falling 7-4 to Indianapolis Lutheran in nine innings Wednesday night in the first round of the Class A Morristown Sectional.</p>
<p>Lutheran junior Matthew Alter went eight innings, striking out 18. He had to leave after eight innings since he had 119 pitches, one shy of the IHSAA limit.</p>
<p>Alter struck out the last five batters he faced. Noah Wood got the final three outs, striking out two, for the Saints (11-10).</p>
<p>“Alter is a good pitcher. He is one of the best arms we’ve seen all year,” said Burton, whose team finished 11-9. “He throws well. When we put the ball in play, we made things happen on the bases. Unfortunately, we made minor mistakes defensively.”</p>
<p>Lutheran capitalized on two errors, a walk and a single to score three in the ninth.</p>
<p>The Lancers took a 1-0 in the second inning on a triple by junior Zach Giles and a single by Ryan Gaston.</p>
<p>“Giles is a strong bat, he’s been good bat for us all year,” Burton said. “He has seven home runs on the year, he’s a fly ball, line drive power hitter. We just couldn’t piece together one through nine that we needed. They just made more plays than we did."</p>
<p>The Saints scored three in third innings, thanks in part to three hit batters and an error. Lutheran added a single run in the fifth to push the lead to 4-1.</p>
<p>Helped by Giles reaching third on dropped ball by the Lutheran center fielder, a single by Gaston, a double by Coltan Henderson and fielder’s choice RBI, the Lancers scored two runs in the sixth. Edinburgh tied it with the help of an error.</p>
<p>“That’s been our problem all year, we just make errors on routine plays,” Saints coach Dick Alter said. “It causes problems for us because we just give up runs for no reason. Then we have to battle to win games.”</p>
<p>Alter said the team didn’t hit well, finishing with just five hits.</p>
<p>“But we hung in there and advanced,” Alter said.</p>
<p>Seven of Edinburgh’s nine starters were seniors and the program graduates nine overall.</p>
<p>“There were a lot of positives,” Burton said. “These seniors were part of the program a few years ago when we didn’t have a lot of success. They were able to bring Edinburgh baseball back to where it should be, back to where it was 10 years ago. We established ourselves as a good team and established a respect factor that hasn’t been there in a few years. The seniors left their mark. We have a good junior class and some young guys that are good athletes.”</p>
