Plan A for the Battlefield baseball team seems simple enough: starting pitcher hurls five or six innings, bring in a middle reliever for one inning if necessary, and close it with Mr. Lights Out himself, John-Austin Shepard.

What happens though when Plan A is no longer an option and the game's been pushed into extra innings? That is an answer Battlefield clearly desired but lacked Saturday at home in Haymarket against Potomac as the Panthers took advantage of costly errors in the seventh and eighth innings to win 3-2.

"They just put the ball in play," said Shepard. "That was pretty big of them. They made us pay for our errors."

The Bobcats at first executed a similar strategy to Plan A after breaking a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the sixth inning. Starting pitcher Zach Harris threw a scoreless four innings, striking out two and leaving the hill with a 1-0 advantage thanks to, of all things, an RBI double play hit by Shepard.

Despite costing the team two outs, Shepard's grounder to the shortstop drove in BHS first baseman Nate Abel, who reached base on a walk and advanced to second and third base on back-to-back base hits by right fielder Chris Wendle and center fielder Bobby Seagears.

Battlefield's Jacob Conway gave up one unearned run in the top of the fifth after and RBI infield single Kyle Viera following an error and a balk, which tied the game at 1-1.

Unfortunately for Battlefield, the Bobcat miscues turned out to be premonitions even in the face of what appeared to be a BHS winning rally. Pitcher John Williams mowed down the Panthers 1-2-3 in the top of the sixth inning, leading to an RBI single by Shepard that drove in Seagears from second base. Shepard cracked a liner that curved over the second base position and dropped into right-center field, bringing in Seagears from second base.

The next inning, Potomac closer Bobby Beimler helped his own cause with a devestating curve ball, striking out two of three Battlefield hitters in the bottom of the seventh and forcing a fly out to the other.

Shepard responded with cool precision in the top of the eighth, wiffing Potomac's lead-off hitter and putting two outs on the board after the second man to the plate flew out to Seagears.

That's when the little things came back to haunt Battlefield. A bobbled grounder to second and a throw from third base to first that bounced past first base to the fence near the Battlefield dug out gave Potomac a 3-2 lead entering the bottom half of the inning.

Williams figured Potomac "sat on" Shepard's fastballs, which were clocking in just shy of 90 mph, in order to put the ball in play even though most of the hits stayed in the infield.

"They were able to time him up," he said.

Harris put himself in scoring position for BHS in the bottom of the seven, reaching on a lead-off single and rounding second base on an error with only one out. But another pop fly to center and grounder to short ended the would-be rally and gave Potomac the one-run win.

"We don't take care of the ball on defense," lamented BHS manager Matt Caudle after the game. "This is how we've played all year; this is why we're 7 and 11."

According to Shepard (2-4, 1.85 ERA), who's given up nine earned runs in 34 innings pitched this year while allowing 12 unearned runs, his team is hurting in clutch situations this year, stranding too many men on base.

"We weren't as aggressive as we needed to be," said Shepard. "We haven't executed with runners on the bags."

He added, "We can't be tentative at the plate and wait for them to come up and give us (easy) stuff."

Williams stressed that Battlefield needs to "come out and have more intensity. We just need to make the simple plays. ... We just need to come out and get those timely hits with runners in scoring position."