Blaze battles back to burn Pioneers
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With the loss, their fourth straight, the (15-14, 5-6 district) Pioneers fell to fifth place in District 7-AAA, and will travel to either Cookeville or Oakland Friday for a district tournament play-in game. Warren County closed its regular season Tuesday night at White County.
Oakland played host to Cookeville Tuesday night, with the winner clinching third place in the league and the loser falling to fourth. Both squads have the tie-breaker over Warren County by virtue of wins over higher-seeded teams.
The district’s top-seeded team, Riverdale, has a bye in the first round and will host the tournament semifinals and finals beginning Saturday.
“If we can get by the first round, we go to Riverdale Saturday and it all levels out,” said WCHS head coach Jimmy Walker. “But you’ve got to win the first one to get to the second, and our kids just have to battle a little bit more.”
The Pioneers battled back from an early deficit against (18-11, 8-3) Blackman, scoring a pair of runs in the fifth to go up 2-1.
With one out, Scott Dunham singled to left, but was caught between first and second on a high chopper from Nathan Cantrell that was mistaken for a pop fly.
Dunham was retired for the second out of the inning, but Tyler Herriman came through with a bunt single, and Cantrell scored to tie the game when Blackman’s third baseman threw the ball away. Herriman, who moved all the way to third on the error, came home on a long triple from Matt Brown.
“Right now we just keep shooting ourselves in the foot,” “The kids played hard for the most part, but then we had some trouble with mistakes on the base paths, and couldn’t come through with the bats when we needed to.”
The Blaze stranded two runners in the bottom of the fifth, but came on strong in the home half of the sixth, connecting for three hits to start the inning and drive Pioneer starter Ryan Vincion (4-3) from the mound.
Reliever Nicholas Robinson was greeted with a single from Ahmir Watkins, and then surrendered a two-run hit to Jeff Wilhite before being relieved by Cody Mitchell, who stopped the bleeding with a strikeout and grounder to first.
The damage done in the sixth proved to be too great, however, as the Pioneers got a leadoff bunt single from Cantrell and a one-out walk from Brown in the seventh before Blackman’s David price fanned Derek Kennamer and Zach Pelham to end the game.
“I’ve got to take my hat off to Blackman,” Walker said. “They battled back, but we had a chance at the end. We had runners on, and needed to do something — but we didn’t.”
The top of the Pioneer order had no answer for Price, who improved to 8-1 with the complete-game win. Warren County’s first five batters finished a combined 0-for-14, with eight strikeouts. Price fanned 13 runners in all, allowing just four hits and two walks.
Warren County’s No. 6 through No. 9 hitters — Dunham, Cantrell, Herriman and Brown — had a hit each.
Watkins and Wilhite each went 2-for-4 for Blackman, which will take the No. 2 seed out of the district.