Frontier’s Davyn Ferrell is tagged out at third base by St. Marys third baseman Cayden Barnard Wednesday night at Frontier High School. The Devils won 5-3. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

NEW MATAMORAS — The Frontier Cougars had to feel like they let one get away Wednesday evening against the St. Marys Blue Devils at Frontier High School.

The Cougars opened the door and credit to the young Blue Devils as they would take full advantage and grinded out a 5-3 win.

Frontier made their only three errors of the game on consecutive plays in the fourth inning and the Devils made them pay by scoring a pair of runs which would turn out to be the difference in the game.

“We are a work in progress but I’m very pleased with the way we played tonight,” said St. Marys head coach Terry Nichols. “It was a tough night with the rain and delay and all but we did what we needed to do to get the win.”

The Cougars got on the board first in the opening inning off of St. Marys starting pitcher Casey Burkhammer.

Frontier’s Zeke Rinard is tagged out at home plate by St. Marys catcher Ayden Powell in the fifth inning Wednesday night. Rinard was trying to score on a wild pitch. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

Second baseman and lead-off batter Brayden Powers singled sharply to left field to open the game and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by starting pitcher Zeke Rinard.

Powers stole third base and came home to score when freshman shortstop Luke Mendenhall’s ground ball was booted by the Devil defense for an error.

Rinard did not pitch much at all last season due to an injury but looked quite sharp over the first three innings for Frontier as he allowed just two St. Marys hits and faced just one over the minimum.

Unfortunately things would unravel in a big way for the Kurt Satterfield-coached Cougars in the top of the fourth.

Rinard retired the first two St. Marys hitters before plunking left fielder Brady Rinard with a pitch.

The next two St. Marys hitters would reach on errors by the Cougar infield and a throwing error by Rinard on a pick-off attempt allowed the second run of the inning to cross to give the Devils a 2-1 lead.

The next inning would take nearly an hour to play due to a lightning delay but the Cougars managed to tie thing up at 2-2.

With one out first basemanTrue King walked and moved to second when third baseman Davyn Ferrel was hit by a pitch.

Right after that the umpires spotted lightning in the area forcing them to pull the players off of the field for 30 minutes.

A light shower fell but the two teams resumed play some 40 minutes later and Cougar center-fielder Austyn Kephart quickly knotted the score by grounding a single up the middle.

Rinard would not walk a single St. Marys batter in the game but the right hander did hit four batters with three of them coming around to score.

Devils center fielder Liam Davis was plunked by Rinard to begin the fifth inning and moved to second on a wild pitch.

After Mason Eisenbarth moved him in to scoring position with a ground ball to the right side, lead-off batter Kyle Bullman laid down a perfect bunt that he beat out for a base-hit allowing Davis to cross the plate with the go-ahead run.

Bullman collected three base hits in the game with two of them coming via the bunt.

“I’ve told Kyle (Bullman) that he could bat .500 if he could bunt and put the ball on the ground,” said Nichols. “He’s fast and if he can get it down he’s going to get on and that’s what he did tonight.”

Daniel Winland was hit by yet another Rinard pitch and Burkhammer and left fielder Brady Rinard followed with back-to-back RBI singles to give St. Marys a 5-2 lead.

Frontier picked up an unearned run off of Burkhammer in the bottom of the inning when True King’s ball was misplayed by the Devil defense allowing Cougar catcher Zerik Rinard to score.

Burkhammer was outstanding on the mound for St. Marys as he allowed just one earned run and three hits over six innings of work before turning things over to Desmond Parks in the seventh inning.

“Casey’s a good one who didn’t get to pitch at all last year with an elbow injury,” said Nichols of Burkhammer, who walked four and fanned 10 in his six innings. “I asked him during the delay if he was good to go back out and he said he was and he may have pitched even better after the delay.”

Zeke Rinard walked to begin the bottom of the seventh for Frontier but was quickly erased when Zerik Rinard’s soft line drive was flagged down in the air by Parks and turned into a double play.

Luke Mendenhall’s single kept things alive for Frontier but Gage Douglass grounded out to end the game.

Satterfield felt like his team definitely had their chances and hopes for better results for his young team down the road.

“We’ve got a long way to go and it can go one way or the other,” said Satterfield, whose team travels to Cameron Friday weather permitting. “It can go down south or we can get better and of course we’d prefer to get better.”

Zeke Rinard deserved a better fate on the mound as he took the loss despite scattering eight hits and allowing three earned runs while fanning six in his complete game.

“He did a nice job for us for sure,” said Satterfield. “He will tell you that he can’t hit them like he did tonight but he’s getting better each time out.”

The Cougars slipped to 1-2 with the loss while St. Marys improved to 3-4.

“We are a very young team and working on fundamentals and the kids are getting better,” said Nichols. “We still mistakes but we are getting better as we go and this was a good win for us over a pretty good Frontier team.”