The Crestwood Panthers playoff hopes took a hit on Thursday with a tough loss to the Northwest Indiana Oilmen at Marian Catholic High School.

The Panthers jumped out in front early with five runs in the first three innings to make it 5-1. However, the Oilmen jumped ahead with an eight run fifth inning to make it 9-5. After falling behind 11-5, the Panthers scored four runs over the final two innings but left the tying run on second to lose 11-9 in a game ending after eight innings due to darkness.

Offensively, the Panthers received contributions up-and-down the lineup with seven different players getting hits and five players with at least one RBI. Maurey Garrett led the way with three RBIs while Adrian Swiech had two RBIs of his own. Jimmy Gurgone reached base in all five of his plate appearances, and increased his league-leading batting average to .404.

Of the 10 hits the Panthers had on the game, seven of them were singles. Head coach D’Vante Glenn loved the approach offensively of the Panthers not trying to do too much while still being productive.

“It is a very mature mentality.” Glenn said, “We don’t want to be losing our mechanics just because we see a good pitch.”

On the mound, the Panthers relied on three different arms with Keagan Bobbitt going 1.2 innings, Jared Hunt going three innings, and Ty Cheney going 3.1 innings. Each combined to give up only three earned runs despite the 11 runs the Oilmen put up.

“We weren’t able to get a lot of innings out of our guys today, but the innings we could get out of them were good enough.” Glenn said, “We have a lot of trust in our guys every time we put them on the mound.”

The Panthers now are 4.0 games behind the Joliet Generals for the final Northern League Playoff spot. Crestwood plays next on Monday, August 1^st against the Southland Vikings at Dowling Park in Hammond, Indiana.

For the full box score, visit the Northern League Pointstreak page: http://baseball.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=577472