BLYTHEWOOD – J.L. Mann got off to a great start against the Blythewood baseball team Tuesday night.
Once starting pitcher Bowman Rummel settled in, the Bengals got off to a better start.
Blythewood bested the Patriots’ 2-run first with a five-spot in the bottom half of that inning, and held on with defense and timely hitting to win 9-4 and remain in the winners bracket of the 5A Division 1 District 1 Tournament.
“This team, there’s no quit, and we’re going to battle back,” Blythewood head coach Travis Poole said. “We were able to come back in and put a five spot on them and Bowman did a good job for us, and then Andrew (Blackwell) has been doing what he’s been doing for us all year.”
Rummel got the win for the Bengals. He settled down and worked 3 1/3 innings, giving up four runs, all earned. He made way for Blackwell in the fourth inning. He worked 3 2/3 innings and gave up two hits, allowed no runs, struck out four and walked just one.
The Bengals await an opponent for Friday—Byrnes and Dutch Fork played an elimination game Wednesday, and the winner goes on to play J.L. Mann for the right to play Blythewood for the District Championship. Whoever faces the Bengals Friday has to beat them twice.
Most of the offensive action came in the first inning Tuesday night.
The Patriots loaded the bases right off and got two runs off of Ashley Shiffer’s single.
After that start Rummel collected himself. He struck out McLeod Darnell, gave up a bunt single to Curtis Bull to reload the bases, but struck out Jessie Threlkeld and got Kaido Greene to fly out to centerfield to end the inning.
Blythewood opened its first inning with four straight singles from Macon Leppert, Alex Myers, Jackson Bottar, and Amare Counts. Counts’ single drove in courtesy runner Andrew Blackwell to cut the Patriots’ lead to 2-1.
With the bases loaded, Sergio Melendez sacrifice bunted and enabled Myers to score from third to tie the game at 2.
The Bengals weren’t finished.
J.L. Mann starting pitcher J Carlson walked Johnny Collins to reload the bases. C Johnson popped out for the second out, but Carlson walked Porter Rummel to score Bottar to make it 3-2 Bengals. Sammy Franklin’s 2 RBI single to rightfield drive in Collens and Counts to give Blythewood a 5-2 lead before Leppert grounded out to retire the side.
The Bengals sat on their lead till the bottom of the third inning when Franklin’s 2-out single scored Melendez and made it 6-2.
The Patriots got two runs back nearly instantly in the top of the fourth when Carter McAdams slapped a one-out single and Griffin King took the first pitch and drove it over the rightfield fence for a 2-run home run to make it 6-4.
That was as close as J.L. Mann would come to pulling even.
In the bottom of the fourth with Bottar at second and two out, Patriots rightfielder King misfielded Melendez’s fly ball, which dropped for an error and enabled Bottar to score the Bengals’ seventh run.
J.L. Mann had some opportunities to score in the fifth and sixth innings, but each time the Bengals infield killed them with inning-ending double plays.
In the bottom of the sixth, Johnson’s 2-out ground single to centerfield scored Navy Strickland and Bottar to make it 9-4.
By that time Blackwell had been on the mound for the Bengals since the fourth inning, and he got the Patriots out in order in the top of the seventh to close out the win.
“We got some key double plays and that’s baseball, but I always say at this time of year, timely hitting is important. Two-out RBIs, scoring runners from second and third when you have the opportunities, especially when you have less than two outs, we did all those things well.”
Blythewood’s victory over J.L. Mann follows up the Bengals 5-0 shutout of Byrnes Saturday to open the tournament. In that game Collins worked a complete game 3-hitter, striking out 13 while walking just one.
Leppert homered, Counts doubled, and Melendez doubled and drove in two runs against the Rebels.
Byrnes – 0-0-0-0-0-0-0 – 0, 3, 1
Blythewood – 1-0-3-1-0-0-X – 5, 7, 0
WP: Johnny Collins, 7 IP, 3H, 0R, 0ER, 1BB, 13K.
BYR – Jaxson Camp 2B. BLY – Macon Leppert 2-3, HR. Amare Counts 2-3, 2B. Sergio Melendez 2B, 2 RBI.
J.L. Mann – 2-0-0-2-0-0-0 – 4, 10, 1
Blythewood – 5-0-1-1-0-2-X – 9, 11, 0
WP: Bowman Rummel, 3 1/3 IP, 8H, 4R, 4ER, 1BB, 3K.
N – Griffin King 3-4, HR, 2 RBI. Carter McAdams 2B. Ashley Shiffer 2 RBI. B – Sammy Franklin 3-3, 3 RBI. Chance Johnson 2-4, 2 RBI.
