The Class B No. 10 Blair baseball team lost a late lead for the third time in three games Tuesday at Orval Smith Field in Ralston.
Coach John Roan's Bears are 0-3. Coming back from a five-run deficit with a six-run top of the sixth inning, they led 4-0 Omaha Concordia 9-8 with just six outs left to get.
The Mustangs, however, didn't need all six to come back and beat BHS. They won 12-9 with a four-run bottom half of the sixth, forgoing the need for seventh-inning plate appearances.
Senior J'Shawn Unger led the Bears in defeat with a 2-for-3 night at the plate. The Nebraska recruit walked once, homered and scored two runs.
Brady Brown and Owen Mann added two RBIs apiece for Blair, too, while Dylan Swanson and Lucas Matejka had one each.
Blaine Rosenbaum, Jake Gaskill and Brown pitched for the Bears, combining for 10 strikeouts, but also 12 runs allowed — six earned.
The Mustangs' Nolan Swett, meanwhile, had five RBIs and Dakota Hughes homered.
A day earlier, Monday, Class B No. 3 Omaha Skutt beat Blair 6-5 at Vets Field, scoring the winning run during the top half of the sixth inning. Tanner Jacobson doubled to deep centerfield and Brown walked during the bottom half, but the Bears failed to score. The Skyhawks struck out each of the three batters they faced during the seventh frame, too.
Coach Roan's team, however, led their visitors 4-1 through four innings. First, Swanson and Brown notched two-out RBIs in the third, delivering a single past the second baseman before Brown's run-scoring double to right-centerfield.
Skutt cut into the lead with an RBI single during the top of the fourth frame before Brown, again, knocked in runs during the bottom half. With two outs, Nelson Kosch, Jacobson and Swanson loaded the bases for the senior, who found a hole on the left side of the infield for two runs.
The Skyhawks answered again, though, pushing across four runs of their own and taking a 5-4 lead in the fifth. Gaskill laid down a squeeze bunt to score Nate Wachter for a tie in the bottom half, but the preseason No. 3 ballclub in Class B ultimately won.
Jacobson, who pitched five innings and struck out two batters, finished 1-for-1 with three walks, while Brown's two hits were only matched by Wachter, who was 2-for-3 with a run scored.
At 0-3, Blair was scheduled to face Platteview in Springfield on Thursday and next faces Bennington today at Vets Field. The home game with the Badgers starts at 4:30 p.m., while Saturday's home tilt against Bellevue West begins at noon.
BHS BASEBALL LINE SCORES
Tuesday
Omaha Concordia 12, No. 10 Blair 9
BHS (0-3) 0 1 1 1 0 6 0 — 9 9 2
OC (4-0) 2 1 05 0 4 X — 12 7 5
Monday
No. 3 Omaha Skutt 6, No. 10 Blair 5
SKUTT (4-0) 0 0 0 1 4 1 0 — 6 7 1
BHS (0-2) 0 0 2 2 1 0 0 — 5 6 4
