Sometimes the breaks just don’t go your way.

That has to be the feeling in the Bradford High dugout lately, as the Owls suffered another heartbreaking loss on Monday, falling to Elk Catholic, 5-4.

“We’ve got to be one of the best 5-11 baseball teams you’ll ever see,” Owls coach Andy Carlson joked after the game.

He’s got a point.

Just a few days removed from losing a nine-inning, 3-2 contest to St. Marys on Friday, Bradford once again came up just short of eking out what would have been a much-deserved victory.

“We play everybody tough,” Carlson said. “We’ve played decent recently, but we just haven’t found a way to win.”

As was the case on Friday, the Owls were able to jump out to an early two-run lead.

After the Crusaders plated the game’s first run on an infield single by Ryan Heary, Bradford answered right back with three runs of its own in the bottom of the first. After Tyler Gigliotti and Kyle Kirk both worked out walks, Dan Manion (2-for-4) rocked a double to left-center field to bring in Gigliotti. Two batter later, Caleb Nuzzo brought in Kirk on a rocket of a single that just made it over the second baseman’s head.

Another RBI single by Peyton Manion (2-for-3) had the Owls in business with a 3-1 advantage.

Unlike in some of their recent performances, the Owls were making hard contact throughout the game.

“We hit some balls today,” Carlson said. “We didn’t crush everything, but we hit the ball harder than they did, and we had more hits than they did.”

Unfortunately, Bradford didn’t have much luck converting these well-hit balls into runs over the next few innings.

Bradford starter Kyle Kirk (two strikeouts, five walks) was relatively solid in his six-plus innings of work. He did an especially nice job working out of a bases-loaded jam in the third inning, inducing a fielder’s choice play and a groudount to shortstop to get out of the inning.

“This was his last outing as a senior,” Carlson said of Kirk. “He battled and gave us a chance to win.”

Elk Catholic started to chip away at the deficit in the fourth inning thanks to an RBI double by Nate DaCanal. In the very next inning, Dan Stauffer tied the game at 3-3 with a hard-hit single to right-center field that scored Brad Dippold, who would score three runs in the contest.

The scored remained tied heading into the seventh inning. After Kirk had to exit the game due to pitch count, the Crusaders were able to get runners on first and second with one out.

Bradford reliever Peyton Manion was able to get the second out on a pop-up to first base. He wasn’t so lucky with the next batter.

Having already driven in one run earlier, ECC’s Heary stepped up big once again, driving in both runners on a well-hit double to deep left field to give the Crusaders a 5-3 lead.

But the Owls got right back to business, as Patrick Caskey started the bottom half of the inning with a double down the third base line. Two batters later, Kirk drove Caskey in on an RBI groundout to shortstop to pull Bradford within one.

It was then Dan Manion who stepped to the plate with the Owls down to their final out. The right-handed hitting junior ripped an opposite-field shot to the fence in right-center field. Off the crack of the bat, it was an easy double.

But Manion was looking for more, rounding second and heading to third, sprinting so fast he lost his helmet. The play at third was as close as they come, but Manion was a fraction of a second too slow. The tag was made, and the game was over.

Coming on the heels of the loss to St. Marys, this defeat was especially difficult for Carlson and the rest of his team to stomach.

“Our last two games we’ve played about 16 innings of pretty dang good baseball,” he said. “We just haven’t come out on the right side.”

While there aren’t too many games left on the schedule, Carlson believes it’s never too late to improve.

“I’m seeing growth all the way around,” he said. “It’s late in the season but it’s still nice to see.”

As Carlson noted, the Owls have certainly performed better than their record might indicate. But for the coach, wins and losses have been secondary to the effort he’s seen from his group.

“These are my guys, and I’ve told them, I’ll go to war with them any day with the way we play,” Carlson said.

The Owls host Cameron County (5-10) this afternoon.

At BRADFORD

    R H E

Elk Catholic   100 110 2    5 6 0

Bradford        300 000 1    4 8 1

Brady Schneider (4 SO, 3 BB), Brad Dippold (7) (1 SO), and Dan Stauffer

Kyle Kirk (2 SO, 5 BB), Peyton Manion (7), and Caleb Nuzzo