BY DAVID FOLSE II

Sports Editor

RESERVE-For those teams that fall just short of the playoffs, just a single game from making the post-season and continuing their own season, they look back at individual games and moments throughout the year and wonder, “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda.”

Riverside Head Baseball Coach Steve Stropolo hopes that Thursday afternoon will not be one of those games for his squad.

The Rebels were defeated by St. Martin’s Thursday night at Mike Miley Stadium, 5-4.

The week was not a total loss for the Rebels. They did pick up a win over Buras on Tuesday afternoon.

The loss to St. Martin’s drops the Rebels to 17-8 on the season and 4-2 in district 10-2A.

Wade Delaneuville was the losing pitcher for Riverside. Delaneuville gave up five hits and multiple runs in five innings of work.

The only true hitting stars of the night for Riverside were David Mavile and Chase Emerson who each finished the game with two hits apiece.

“We have to bounce back from this,” Stropolo said after the game. “We are tied with St. Martin’s in the district and they have one game left and we have two games remaining. We have to win our remaining two games to stay in the race. They are must wins for us.

“I don’t know how a tiebreaker would work if we would play it off or not, but I do know that they would win the head-to-head tiebreaker if we didn’t play it off.”

Stropolo said his team did have their fair share of chances for success against St. Martin’s.

“We left entirely too many men on base,” Stropolo said. “We would leave a lot of runners on base and in scoring position and if you want to win games you cannot do that. We didn’t hit the ball in clutch situations and our first four hitters only managed to get two hits and you can’t win games in district when that happens.

“Not if you want to be successful and win games.”