Andy Bunch pitches Bradley to split, top seed in district
Bradley Central came into Wednesday’s high school baseball doubleheader at Soddy-Daisy knowing it needed to win one game to be the top-seeded team for the District 5-AAA tournament it will host starting next Wednesday. And right-handed pitcher Andy Bunch saw to it that the Bears did that.
After the Trojans won the first game 9-3, Bunch responded with a three-hitter in which he seemed to get stronger as the night wore on in a 5-0 victory for Bradley.
The fourth- and seventh-seeded teams in the district will play a single-elimination game to start the tournament, as will the fifth and sixth seeds. The winners will meet, and then that winner will take on Bradley (19-10) in a best-of-three series. Third-seeded Soddy-Daisy (19-11) will play second-seeded Walker Valley in a best-of-three.
The hits Bunch allowed were all singles — one in the second inning and two in the third. He retired the last 14 batters he faced, including striking out eight consecutive in that stretch.
“Andy Bunch was the difference,” Bradley coach Travis Adams said. “He sat down like 14 straight at one point. There’s your ballgame. We scored a couple right there early, and from there on we added one here and there. But Andy Bunch was the ballgame. That really was one for the scrapbook.” Bunch totaled 14 strikeouts. He walked one. “Bunch was unbelievable in that game right there,” Soddy-Daisy coach Jared Hensley said. “He just pretty much took control from the beginning. He really located his fastball in all counts. We didn’t have a very good approach all night.”
The Trojans got a standout pitching performance from Dylan Perry in the opener. He allowed six hits in 6 2/3 innings, and all the runs were unearned. He walked two and had 12 strikeouts. “That’s pretty much what he’s been doing all year,” Hensley said of Perry, who along with Bunch has a 6-1 pitching record. “He got roughed up against Ooltewah (the loss costing the Trojans the tiebreaker) last week, and he was looking to bounce back.”
Perry was supported by a four-run first inning and a two-run second.
“The first game I was like, ‘What is going on?’” Adams said. “That’s a good lineup to have to pitch against, and (starter and losing pitcher) Blaze (Benton) didn’t have his best stuff. Being down six that early kind of took away what we like to do execution-wise. We’re not a big run-scoring team. We’re built more on pitching and defense.” Hayden Maynor and Jacob Jennings combined for five hits and four runs scored at the top of Soddy-Daisy’s order in the first game. Seth Coffelt contributed a two-run triple, and Luke Ellis also drove in two runs.
The Bears’ Dylan Standifer and Pete Williams had back-to-back RBI hits in the second inning of the second game. Preston Taylor went 3-for-3 with an RBI in their loss.
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.