An uncharacteristic day in the field led to an unusual result at home for the Aberdeen Smittys on Sunday afternoon.

The squad lost their first home games of the season at Fossum Field, falling to top-ranked Harrisburg Gold 6-1 and 6-4 and more than a handful of errors played a key role in the American Legion baseball outcomes.

“That’s something too that we talked about,” Smittys coach Nathan Gonnelly. “The thing that hurt us today was our defense. A couple of things go our way batting, I mean with the wind today, whatever, everybody is dealing with that, both sides are dealing with that. It was the self-inflicted wounds on defense that really hurt us.”

The Smittys jumped out to a one-run lead in the first inning of the opener on a sacrifice fly by Casey Vining and were right in the game, trailing 2-1 heading to the seventh thanks to the strong pitching of Phillip Zens.

However, an error opened the door for four unearned runs in the frame as the visitors pulled away.

“Obviously, way too many fielding errors there, in really both games,” Zens said, “just crucial mistakes in big moments. We can’t have errors in the field, so we got to clean that up.”

For his part, Zens held a potent lineup in check, striking out six batters before leaving the game in the seventh. A key was not falling behind in the count.

“Just getting ahead early against hitters, mixing pitches,” Zens said. “The wind is blowing in today so, they put the ball in play, it’s probably not going to go anywhere.”

Zens said he was able to throw all of his pitches for strikes.

“I was getting everything in the zone,” Zens said, “kind of just trying whatever, working off previous at-bats to get hitters out.”

Drew Salfrank had three hits to lead Aberdeen in the first contest.

Aberdeen received a solid mound performance from Zane Backous in the nightcap as well. After the Smittys put up two runs in the first on a ground out and a wild pitch, the hosts took that 2-0 lead into the fourth inning where again an error paved the way to a five-run inning for Harrisburg.

While the Smittys went on to score two late runs, one on a Grant Beyer RBI-single, they were never able to recover.

“Both of our starting pitchers did phenomenal today,” Gonnelly said. “Phillip Zens, Zane Backous, those guys did very well. It’s just the defense was not there to help back them up, and that kind of hurts a little bit as we saw today.”

Fielding has not been much of an issue for the Smittys this season, but miscues let them down on Sunday.

“It’s frustrating when we make errors, but I make errors myself out there, too,” Zens said. “I’ve got to make better pitches, we’ve got to make better plays in the field. It’s a team game.”

Aberdeen is currently in a battle for home-field advantage during the upcoming region tournament in about a month. When asked if games against a top-ranked foe like Harrisburg Gold took on added meaning, Zens said every game is important.

“We’re really just focused on winning every game,” Zens said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, if we’re playing the best team, if we’re playing a team in the middle or if we’re playing a team on the bottom, we want to win every game.”

While the setbacks were less than ideal for the Smittys, the squad can take away some positives in the fact that they went toe-to-toe with the team atop the Class A Legion standings.

“I think we know we can play with these guys. If you erase those errors off the board, I think we got a pretty good chance of winning both games,” Zens said. “I think that helped us understand where we need to get better at. I think we could have did a better job putting the ball in play today as well. I think we struck out quite a bit in that first game, so we got a few things we need to clean up, but I think we’ll get it done.”

The Smittys have two more key games coming up on Tuesday when they host Sioux Falls West, a team right behind them in the race for home-field advantage in the region.

Gonnelly believes that his players will come out with something to prove in the 3 p.m. doubleheader.

“I don’t really look at the standings too much. Of course, I look, but I don’t really pay it too much mind. We’ve got to go out there and just play our best version of the game,” Gonnelly said. “We play Sioux Falls West on Tuesday. They’re the team below us now. It will be a good game. I think we’re going to come back with our hair on fire a little bit.”

Harrisburg Gold 010 100 4 – 6 8 0

Aberdeen Smittys 100 000 0 – 1 4 3

Darren Safranski, T. Raymond (7) and Max Carlson; Phillip Zens, Casey Vining (7) and Talan Dutenhoeffer

Harrisburg Gold 000 510 0 – 6 8 1

Aberdeen Smittys 200 002 0 – 4 3 3

Kason Syverson, Noah Boschee (2), T. Raymond (7) and Max Carlson; Zane Backous, Joran Foss (7) and Talan Dutenhoeffer. 2B – Harrisburg Gold, M. Scherer. 3B – Harrisburg Gold, Max Carlson.