Heritage completes Fayetteville sweep

ROGERS — Bennett Crafton was more concerned with where he needed to ball than how hard he could hit it.

The junior punched a single into right field and allowed Ethan Martin to score the goahead run as Rogers Heritage rallied for a 6-4 victory over Fayetteville during 6A-West Conference action Tuesday at War Eagle Field.

Crafton’s single highlighted a four-run sixth and gave the War Eagles the sweep in their two-game series over the Bulldogs.

“All night long, he was throwing me breaking balls,” Crafton said, referring to Fayetteville pitcher Landon Schaefer. “Even before my atbat happened, Cooper Mann got on base, and that’s really what it takes — a team effort and a competitive spirit.

“I was sitting on off-speed because I knew he wasn’t going to throw me a fastball when I was ahead in the count. I just took the off-speed and dinked it through the four hole. It worked.”

Fayetteville (15-7, 6-6) took a 4-2 lead into the sixth, but Heritage (19-5, 8-4) cut the margin in half when Aiden Adair doubled and scored on Spencer Mounce’s single. Martin then laid down a bunt and reached on a throwing error, which allowed Mounce to move to third.

Mann, a freshman, drew a walk to load the bases, then a wild pitch allowed Mounce to come home with the tying run. One pitch later, Crafton hit his single between first and second, and the War Eagles added an insurance run as Mann came home after an errant pickoff throw.

“Landon Schaefer is going to the Razorbacks for a reason,” Heritage coach Brian Walker said. “He’s really good, and he competes. And they came out aggressive because they got beat [Monday], and they punched us.

“Our guys were able to come back and chip away and eventually get Landon out of the game. It was how we were going to have to do it in order to win. We put go at-bats together and finally scratched some runs across.”

Fayetteville jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first as Zach Adams’ ground-rule double drove in a run, followed by Jaison DeLamar’s two- run single. It became a 4-0 game in the second when Tristan Morgan reached on an error and eventually scored on Eli Patrick’s single.

Heritage didn’t respond the fourth when Josh Hinds’ double to left drove in Martin, who had reached on a fielder’s choice. Jack Hamm then belted a solo home run in the fifth to made it a two-run game.

Luke Askew pitched 5 2/3 innings of relief and earned the win over Heritage, while Crafton and Martin had two hits apiece. Parker Wright had three hits for Fayetteville, while Patrick and DeLamar added two apiece.

ROGERS 8, SPRINGDALE 0

The top of Rogers’ battling lineup combined for six hits, seven runs and five RBI as Rogers shut out Springdale for the second time in as many days.

Caleb Champion had two hits and scored three times for the Mounties (192, 11-1), while Cooper Addison had two hits, two runs scored and drove in a pair of runs. J.T. Melson had two hits, two runs scored and three RBI.

Ty Anderson threw six innings and allowed five hits while recording eight strikeouts while Madden Dillard pitched the seventh to complete the shutout.

Lance Wike had a team-high three hits and drove in two runs for Rogers.

SPRINGDALE HAR-BER 10, FS SOUTHSIDE 0

One day after Ross Felder had a no-hitter against Southside, he followed it up with three hits, including a tworun home run, as Har-Ber completed a sweep at Wildcat Field.

The Wildcats (18-6, 9-5) jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first as Jeff Zachry had an RBI single, while two runs scored on an error and another on a wild pitch. Felder’s RBI single in the fourth and Zachry’s sacrifice fly made it a 6-0 game, then Felder hit his tworun home run as part of a three-run fifth.

Gavin Moore and Tyler Ridley combined to throw a two-hit shutout with nine strikeouts. Henry Acuff added two hits for the Wildcats.