Dawgs rally vs. Ads at The Ballpark for 8-inning win
It was yet another great ballgame between longtime rivals Bearden and Farragut, this time in extra innings Monday night, April 14, in The Ballpark at Farragut.
In the top of the eighth with the score tied 5-5, the Bulldogs had runners on first and third with two outs.
Tyler Cline hit a bloop single just beyond first baseman Travis Brummitt Jr.’s glove, scoring Bearden’s Sammy Greene with the go-ahead run.
The 6-5 score held up as the Admirals went three-up, three-down in the bottom of the inning.
The District 4-4A win, which improved the Dawgs’ record to 22-5 (6-2 District), avenged BHS’s 11-5 home loss to Farragut on March 26. FHS fell to 17-7, 6-2.
“Credit to them, they did a good job on the mound mixing it up and keeping us off balance,” Garrett Copeland, Admirals’ skipper, said. “That’s a good team. We gotta step up to the challenge.”
“It’s just nice to play well,” Bearden head coach Dave Prichard said. “We dug a 6-0 hole last time and never got a chance to play baseball. This is a good win for our guys and it’s good to see them battle back.”
The battling back Prichard referred to came in the fifth inning, which the Bulldogs entered down 4-0.
Farragut got a single run in the first inning when Neyland Williams scored on Jackson Zeller’s sac fly.
In the second, Jake Harris’ grounder scored Owen Stelzer from third with the bases loaded to make it 2-0. Two more in the third — an RBI double by Zain Kureshi-Smith which scored Brummitt, and Stelzer’s sac fly, which scored Kureshi-Smith — made it 4-0 Admirals after three.
Bearden roared back with five in the top of the fifth to lead 5-4. Cline opened the inning with a single, then went to second when Cameron Cooper walked. Evan Cope’s bunt resulted in an errant throw to first, which scored Cline and advanced the runners.
The next four batters then drove in runs: RBI singles by Grayson Wright and Matt Schroeffel, a fielder’s-choice grounder by Logan Benko and a sac fly by Gavin Bergeron.
Farragut tied in the bottom of the sixth when Harris’ grounder scored pinch runner Brayden Alexander. The Admirals loaded the bases with no outs to open the inning, but could push across only the one run.
“Offensively, I thought we had some chances we didn’t take advantage of late in the game,” Copeland said in reference to the sixth.
A scoreless seventh led to Cline’s game-winning hit in the eighth.
Dawgs pitcher Charlie Loftin entered the game with no outs in the third inning and went the distance, giving up three hits and one earned run. He struck out two and walked three. “We can fight, we’ve got it in us; we can produce for sure. We just gotta have the confidence,” Loftin said.
“Our whole game is pressure,” Prichard said. “The first four innings we created no pressure. The team that can create pressure is the team that’s gonna advance to the Regionals (from the District 4-4A Tournament).”
