The Chaps had men on first and second with first-baseman junior Bobby Serfass up to the plate in the bottom of the seventh. At 5-5, the game was on the line. A bunt put the ball in play, and the Lehman catcher made the throw to first. Instead of making it there, he hit Bobby, and the home plate umpire made the decision to call runner interference, holding the runners and giving the Chaps one out. The momentum switched, and Westlake couldn’t convert, as the inning ended with he scores level.

“I didn’t have a good look at it, but you don’t see that call very often,” head coach J.T. Blair said. “It hurt us at the time, but that’s the way it goes. That’s baseball. Sometimes you get those calls, sometimes you don’t.”

The game headed into extra innings, and without run support late on, Westlake fell to Lehman 7-5 in eight innings Friday.

“We spotted them five runs early, but I thought our guys did a really great job fighting to get back into the game,” Blair said. “I’m proud of our guys for the way they played getting back into the game.”

In the fourth inning the Chaps came back scoring five runs thanks to hits from juniors Bobby Serfass and Ford Elliot and seniors Garrett Aylor and Ray Tovar to make the score 5-5. Blair brought sophomore Kirkland Michaux into the fifth inning, and the young reliever had an impressive two earned runs and a strike percentage of 67 percent in four innings pitched on the night.

“My main thought process was to throw strikes, get batters to hit the ball in play and make plays in the field,” Kirkland said. “I think later in the game, I threw too many fastballs and they started getting that down and I went to the curve at the end but it was a bit too late.”

Westlake started off slow, giving up two runs in the first two innings and three more by the fourth inning. Pitcher senior Ben Ludwig started on the mound, giving up four earned runs in four innings of work. Ben finished the night with a strike percentage of 61 percent.

Tasked with making a late push for the playoffs, the Chaps will have little margin for error going into the latter stages of the season.

“We need to keep chopping wood,” Blair said. “We have eight games left and we need to keep plugging.”