Panthers too much for Red Devils,
MOUNTAIN PINE — Magnet Cove picked up its first conference win Monday with a 16-1 rout of Mountain Pine.
The Panthers (7-6, 1-0 2A-7) set the tone for the game early, plating nine runs in the top of the first inning. The Red Devils (2-6, 0-2) committed six errors in the inning.
Senior center fielder Rowdy Lathrop got the Panthers on the board first, driving in freshman shortstop Matthew Stone before senior catcher Lucas Smeltzer came up to drive in Lathrop on a hard fly ball over the center fielder’s head. Junior first baseman Owen Tillery hit an RBI single to left before senior left fielder Landon Stone hit one of his own.
Freshman second baseman Cameron Gassman’s hit his own RBI single as the top of the lineup came back up with Matthew Stone hitting a ground ball down the third baseline for an RBI. Lathrop followed with a two-RBI double between right and center.
“We hit the ball well today,” said Magnet Cove head coach Robert Webb. “And then Harper, he started a little slow, but boy after that, he was pretty calm and did a good job for a freshman.”
Webb said he believes starting off conference play with the big win will pay off down the road.
“Oh, it really does (give the team an edge) — I mean, you know, 1-0 versus 0-1, but it’s big,” he said. “We played a doubleheader on Friday, and we were 10-runner in both of those. We had Harmony Grove and then we had Woodlawn, which played very well, so I was glad we came back today and really focused.”
The Red Devils came into the game off their first conference loss of the season, a 7-2 defeat at Horatio on March 19. Mountain Pine head coach Joseph Alderman said that this was “not Mountain Pine baseball.”
“We’re a much better team than that,” he said. “We fell apart, you know, when the first eight came across due to some, you know, bloopers that found gaps, and then due to the six errors. As a full team here, (we’ve) just mentally got to be able to battle threw those things. Magnet Cove’s a good team. I’m just, you know dumbfounded about what happened today.
“One thing that we have been doing all year is hitting the ball. I’ve got two kids batting over .400. I’ve got three more that are in the .300s. We have a team batting average right now of .293. We’re fine. The thing is, today, once that first inning, you know, when you’re the home team and you’re fielding gets in your way that first inning to kind of set the tone for us as we’re an inexperienced team when it comes to baseball.”
The Panthers came back up to the plate in the second to add an additional seven runs.
The Red Devils finally got on the board in the bottom of the fourth inning when senior center fielder Josiah Walpole hit an RBI single to plate Braydon Radley.
“I think our bats are going to be fine,” Alderman said. “I think we’re still going to continue to hit the ball well. We have to, we’ve got to throw strikes whenever someone else comes in. We get in the process of — I don’t have a lot of arms, and we’ve got guys that try and do too much. They’re trying to overdo everything.”
Harper got the win on the mound for the Panthers, pitching all five innings, striking out 10 and walking five.
Matthew Stone went 2 for 3 with a double and three RBIs and a stolen base, Lathrop went 2 for
2 with two doubles and four RBIs and a stolen base, Smeltzer went
2 for 3 with double and a triple and two RBIs, and McClelland went 1 for 1 with a double and a stolen base. Tillery was 2 for 3 with a double and three RBIs, Sullivan hit a triple with two RBIs and a stolen base, Landon Stone went 2 for 2, and Gassman went 1 for 3 with two RBIs.
Tielyr Sales pitched 2 1/3 innings for Mountain Pine, striking out one while walking two. Radley struck out one with one walk, junior Brice Langley struck out two and walked one, and Walpole finished out the game walking two and fanning three. Walpole was 1 for 2 at the plate with one RBI, and senior left fielder Christian Sheridan went 1 for 2 with a stolen base.
Magnet Cove will play its second conference game Thursday at Poyen while Mountain Pine heads to Foreman.