Costly errors and struggles on the mound doomed Scott in what turned out to be
their final game of the season.
The Eagles fell to George Rogers Clark, 8-2, in the first quarterfinal game of the 10th
Region baseball tournament at Bourbon County on Tuesday.
Scott used four pitchers and struggled with the strike zone, issuing nine walks. Four errors also proved to be the culprit.
The second inning was where the game was won for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals scored five runs, while Scott had two of their four errors in the frame.
“We stressed all year long that we don’t want to have leadoff walks,” Scott coach
Kevin Goins said. “There was a leadoff walk in that inning. Sometimes you can get
out of it, but a lot of times that’s just a recipe for a big inning. We had a chance to
make some plays in the inning that we didn’t capitalize on. Next thing you know,
they have five runs.”
The Eagles finally broke the scoring drought in the fourth inning, punching in their only
two runs of the game.
Trevor Pulsfort started the inning with a double and would later advance to home on
an Andrew Stretch single. Porter Huston would cross home plate for the other run on a Brady Smith single.
In contrast to the Eagles, GRC had success on the mound. Starter, Haddon Cecil
threw four strikeouts, giving up the only two runs. Maddox Campbell came in for relief with three strikeouts in 1.2 innings and freshman Abe Mullins finished the
game with four more strikeouts and just one hit.
The Eagles finished with three strikeouts.
“We’ve got some guys that can pitch, but we don’t have that one guy that you can just
pencil in and say blow the doors off,” Goins said “I compare it to a boxing match. We
weren’t going to try and go toe-to-toe with them, but keep them off balance. We
were hoping to keep it close late in the game, and maybe our hitting would come
through.”
The Cardinals pitchers totaled 11 strikeouts, four walks and surrendered eight hits.
At the plate, they were led by Abrahm Howard, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI. Abe
Mullins and Caden Spicer had one RBI each. Howard and Mullins are both freshmen. Three more freshmen made an appearance in the game.
“They’re not freshmen anymore” GRC coach, Eddie Brooks said “They’ve been
starting most of the year, so I just look at them as season sophomores. It’s really easy
to trust kids who have been performing at a high level since I’ve gotten them. It’s a
trust factor that they’ve earned.”
Leading the way for Scott was leadoff hitter Brady Smith, who went 2-for-4 with one
RBI. Zach Sparks was named to the all-tournament team. He went 1-for-3 with a walk.
Scott’s season comes to a close at 17-19.
“I commend our seven seniors for getting us back to the region. That was one of our
goals,” Goins said. “We wanted to have a better record than last year, so we
accomplished that. We wanted to compete in the district and throw our hat back in
on the region. I told them to leave it better than you found it. Next year we say, these
guys took us to this point, and now let’s take another step forward. We want to kick
the door in and say you better watch out, Scott’s arrived.”
GRC improves to 27-11 and will take on Mason County in the semifinals on Thursday night. The Royals knocked off defending champ Harrison County, 4-3 in eight innings.
CARDINALS 8, EAGLES 2
SCOTT — 000-200-0 — 2-8-4
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK — 050-201-x — 8-5-1
2B — (S) Pulsfort, (GRC) Davis
WP — Cecil. LP — Ronnebaum.
Records: Scott 17-19, George Rogers Clark 27-11