Wednesday roundup
- Updated: March 13, 2019
Piedmont, PV win area baseball games, White Plains rallies in eighth; Okins leads White Plains golf to second win
Wednesday’s scores
Clay Central 15, Woodland 3
Handley 10, Cleburne County 0
Piedmont 12, Weaver 1
Pleasant Valley 10, Wellborn 1
Ohatchee 13, Ragland 3
White Plains 5, Lincoln 4
By East Alabama Sports Today
WEAVER – Logan Pruitt went to the mound a little sooner than scheduled Wednesday, but was his usual efficient self and pitched Piedmont to a 12-1 win over Weaver in the Bulldogs’ Class 3A Area 9 opener.
The game was moved up a day to beat expected bad weather Thursday and Pruitt was going on three day’s rest after throwing in the Bulldogs’ Calhoun County Tournament opener Saturday.
He gave them them a complete game, allowing three singles, an unearned run and striking out four. He threw 81 pitches, 53 for strikes.
“I was a little worried having to play the game a day early because Pruitt would’ve had three day’s rest,” Piedmont coach Matt Deerman said. “He said he felt good, he wanted the ball, so we went with him.
“We wanted to get that first one under our belt and wanted to run our best guy out there. He did his typical efficient job.”
Pruitt and Weaver starter Jadon Calhoun were locked in a pitcher’s duel through the first three innings. It may have been a scoreless game, but the Bulldogs made Calhoun throw a lot of pitches and they eventually broke it open with five in the fourth.
Austin Estes had RBI singles in the inning, Brant Deerman walked with the bases loaded and Mason Mohon had a two-run single.
Mohon and Jack Hayes both went 3-for-4. Estes had two hits and Nick Johnson had two RBIs.
Piedmont 12, Weaver 1
Piedmont 000 525 – 12 14 2
Weaver 000 010 – 1 3 2
WP: Logan Pruitt. LP: Jadon Calhoun.
PV goes to 4-0
The Pleasant Valley Raiders underwent a bit of introspection with the hitters after their Calhoun County Tournament loss and obviously found something in their look in the mirror.
The Raiders jumped on Wellborn early, pounded 15 hits in the game and scored a 10-1 victory to run their record to 4-0 in the five-team Class 3A Area 9.
“It’s exciting,” PV coach Chris Youngman said. “Any time you can be the top team in the area against teams that go to work every day, to go 4-0 is a good start. It’s not where we want to be as far as the end goal, but 4-0 is a good start.”
Ashton King went 4-for-5 with a double and triple. Alex Parris went 2-for-3 with a solo homer in the second inning. Dalton Page had two hits and three RBIs, Skyler Mcleod had two hits and two RBIs, Garrett Cranmer and Jake Upton each had two hits.
“We sat down and talked about a lot of things,” Youngman said. “After our tournament we felt we didn’t produce all the way through the lineup; we got two runs and felt we’re a better ball team than that. We went back to some old-school philosophies, saw it well and hit it together. It’s starting to work. Hopefully we can keep that trend going upwards.”
Jackson Almaroad, meanwhile, checked the Panthers on six hits. He walked one and struck out six. He threw 90 pitches in the complete game, 68 for strikes. He went to a two-ball count on only four hitters and went to a three-ball count only once.
“Jackson pitched a fantastic game,” Youngman said. “He was filling it up. I think through four or five innings he only threw nine balls.”
Pleasant Valley 10, Wellborn 1
Pleasant Val. 240 301 0 – 10 15 1
Wellborn 000 001 0 – 1 6 2
WP: Jackson Almaroad. LP: Jett Smith.
2B: Ashton King (P), Garrett Cranmer (P), Jett Smith (W), Will Waldrop (W). 3B: Ashton King (P). HR: Alex Parris (P).
Wildcats catch a break
Brendan Roper raced home from second on Houston Conger’s grounder to short with one out in the bottom of the eighth, capping a two-run rally that sent White Plains to a 5-4 victory over visiting Lincoln.
Ethan Gobel started the rally when he got all the way to third on a fly ball that was misplayed in the outfield and scored the tying run on Tyler Daniel’s sacrifice fly. Roper followed with a double to left and scored on the ball Conger, a senior getting his first varsity at-bats, hit to short.
The Wildcats were back on their heels after a couple tough losses. They suffered a seventh-inning walk-off loss to Piedmont in the Calhoun County Tournament and a lost to Class 1A earlier this week.
They had a 3-1 lead in this game, but Lincoln tied it with single runs in the sixth and seventh and took the lead with a run in the eighth.
“It’s been tough the last couple of days, a weird week,” White Plains coach Wes Henderson said. “We needed a break like that. We haven’t had a situation that has gone in our favor yet … but we showed we could battle back. It showed a little resiliency.
“We came in after we got out of the (eighth) inning and said we were going to win the game, it’s going to take us a little longer than anticipated; let’s see a little bit of fight.”
Roper had three of White Plains’ five hits in the game. He also pitched the eighth after Matthew Clay struck out nine in seven innings and got the win.
White Plains 5, Lincoln 4
Lincoln 000 101 11 – 4 6 5
White Plains 000 030 02 – 5 5 5
WP: Brendan Roper. LP: Dalton Popham. 2B: Brendan Roper (W).
GOLF
Wildcats earn second win
CULLMAN – Kenny Okins shot a 2-over-par 74 to win individual medalist honors and lead White Plains to its second tournament win in three starts this season.
The Wildcats shot 307 as a team to win the 16-team Fairview tournament at Cross Creek, the site of the sectional tournament later this season. They also counted 77s from Andrew Miller and Wesley Jenkins and a 79 from Gavin Burrage.
Okins, who recently followed Jenkins’ lead and shorn his flowing locks, had two birdies in his round after a three-putt bogey on his first hole. He parred his last five in a row and won by two shots.
James Clemens was second (317) and Sylacauga third (327).
Tennis
Donoho sweeps Faith
Donoho swept the girls and boys tennis matches with Faith Christian at Anniston Country Club.
The Donoho girls won 9-0. In singles, Emma Weidmer defeated Zana Christjohn 8-3, Claire Hillman defeated Sarah Christjohn 8-0, Virginia Hutto fought her way past Kristin Covington 8-5, Lily Grace Draper beat Meagan Ford 8-1, Claire Walker defeated Dacey Dunaway 8-2 and Mary Marshall Perry finished out the singles with an 8-3 win over Kassidy Nix.
In doubles play, Weidmer-Hutto won 8-3 over Christjohn-Christjohn, Hillman-Draper won 8-1 over Covington-Ford and Walker-Perry won 8-4 over Dunaway-Nix.
The Lady Falcons improved to 6-1.
The Donoho boys ran their record to 5-1 with the 8-1 victory.
In singles, Cooper Montgomery defeated Jac Myrick 8-1, Harrison Han won 8-3 over Joshua Goode, Gray Hanley defeated Brodie Yarbrough 8-6 in a tiebreaker; Hanley was down 6-2 in the tie-breaker, but won six straight points to pull out the match. Jack Ballard beat Evan Miller 8-5 and Reese McWhorter defeated Gavin Randall 8-3.
Eli Mitchell picked up the Lions’ only point of the match with an 8-2 win over Rhett Rigby.
Donoho swept the doubles matches with Montgomery-Hanley knocking off Mitchell-Myrick 8-2, Han-Rigsby winning 8-3 over Goode-Yarbrough and in perhaps the best match of the day Ballard-McWhorter beating Miller-Gavin 9-8 in a 7-4 tiebreaker. –Brant Locklier
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