South Aiken roars ahead

NORTH AUGUSTA --- One big inning offensively and one key rundown executed perfectly on defense was enough for the South Aiken baseball team to knock off North Augusta 7-5 on Monday night in a mistake-filled game plagued by cold rain.

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"Any time you win, it's a good victory," South Aiken coach Bob Polewski said. "But a lot of things happened in the course of that game."

After a 23-minute delay to start the game, Polewski twice argued questionable calls and watched his team fall behind 4-0 on two first-inning errors, three hits and two hit batters by starter Tanner Hawley.

The Thoroughbreds reclaimed the lead with a seven-run fourth inning highlighted by a grand slam by Grayson Smith.

"It was a big hit. That kind of got us moving," Polewski said. "It was kind of a momentum changer."

North Augusta got one run back in the bottom of the fourth and tried a final-inning comeback, but South Aiken held on thanks to a 7-2-1-2-6-1-5-2 play in the seventh inning to retire pinch runner Vinny Miller, who got trapped between third and home trying to score from second on a single to left field.

"The biggest part of that play was our pitcher (John Leopard) was where he was supposed to be (backing up the catcher)," Polewski said. "To see it executed and get out of it, I was pretty pleased with that because that was a big run right there."

Instead of a one-run game with the tying run at second and one out, the rundown was the second out of the inning, and Leopard earned the save by finishing the job two batters later.

"When you get a team down like that, you can't let up," North Augusta coach Vic Radcliff said. "But after we got the lead, there were a few innings where we didn't respond offensively like we should have."

Both teams kept their aces off the mound in the nonregion meeting, but Yellow Jacket starter Jackson Whitley struck out four in two innings of work.

Reliever Dustin White held South Aiken scoreless over the final three innings, but so did South Aiken's Leopard, who stranded five base runners.